


Temptation

by Violetwilson



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Reylo - Freeform, christ i hope they don't end up being related - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:30:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetwilson/pseuds/Violetwilson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She would draw him to the light. He would draw her to his side. Unstoppable forces do occasionally move immovable objects. Even the stubborn ones.</p><p>(Conversations and smut between Ren and Rey on Starkiller Base that were unjustly left out from the film.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Masks

**Author's Note:**

> This story adheres as strictly as possible to the dialogue and plot of the original film, but will likely veer off into my imagination when I run out of established plot. Or when I get bored with the established plot. Without a doubt there will be some steaminess. 
> 
> It's never been beta'd, so I apologize in advance if there are any mistakes!

_The bastard was back for more._

He strode into the room, dark hood, dark cloak, dark mask, dark everything towering over her restrained body. Sweat prickled against her brow as the metal of the restraining unit bit into her arms and legs. Everything on her body was pins and needles and she had to fight hard to bite back the sharp retort she could already feel brewing behind her teeth.

Kylo Ren, masked and tall, loomed over her like a shadow, and she wished fervently that he would burst into flames.

As if he could feel that desire, Kylo stayed a few feet away from her. She could hear him breathing but he didn’t speak, just breathed slowly through the maddening mask she’d already seen behind.

Finally, after the wordless silence stretched on for what felt like an hour, Rey snapped, “Well, get on with it.”

“Talk to me,” was all he said. Rey felt a pressure in her brain, the firm nudge of Kylo’s invading thoughts behind her skull like a palm against her mind. He was using his mind invading gift again, but this time it seemed that he wasn’t after anything particularly deep. His presence was shallow in her thoughts, not mining her depths for the things she kept secret, just scavenging the surface for the images floating behind her eyes.

He was hungry for it. She could sense it in a way that felt like an ache in her bones. His want filled the room, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was he wanted.

It didn’t physically hurt, but she began to tremble, her body anticipating the wave of nausea and pain that had filled her when he had done it before. It had felt like her brain was made of glass that he was stepping on, trying to access a part of her he couldn’t have.

But he didn’t increase his pressure, just skirted outside her thoughts. The word “skimming” came to mind.

“I’ll never tell you-” she began.

“I’m not here for that,” he said quietly, and she felt the palm of his mind glide smoothly around her consciousness, circling it in a way that felt bizarrely gentle, even if it was all wrong. She didn’t understand.

“What are you doing?” she said, gritting her teeth, bracing for pain that wasn’t coming. He moved closer to her now, about a foot away from her.

“Tell me about your parents,” Kylo said, and in her head, Rey saw a silver ship flying away into a cloudless sky. She felt him see the image, felt him drink it in.

Kylo took another step forward. “You can’t remember what they look like.”

With a surge of energy, Rey fought back against his prying mind, bitterly resisting the touch of his probing in her brain until she had repelled him. She was alone in her head again, and that strange, gently inquiring force had fled. His masked face was unreadable, but he didn’t move. His body language suggested that he was tensed, but she couldn’t imagine why. She was completely immobilized, helpless except for her ability to fight him out of her head.

“Stop doing that,” Rey snapped. “It’s not-”

“I’m sorry,” Kylo said in that strange, slow way of speaking he had. “I can’t help it.”

“Yes you absolutely can help it,” she snapped. “You use it like a weapon. Don’t try to say you can’t control it, because we both know that’s not true.”

“That,” he said, pausing for a moment, “was not what I meant.”

It was surreal talking to a man with no face, and though Rey was comfortable enough reading non-human faces, she’d seen many species come and go on Jakku, Kylo’s mask was another thing entirely. It was so dark she could almost see herself reflected in it, pale and glimmering in the shiny environment. It made her uncomfortable. She was taken aback by the hollowness in her cheeks, the dirt on her face. It seemed surreal that only hours ago she’d been fighting for her life in a forest.

She felt him in her brain again at the exact moment she remembered him immobilizing her in that same forest, the way her body had been painfully rigid as he dragged his thoughts through her brain. She had blacked out, or he had blacked her out himself. She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.

With an exertion, she pushed herself into his thoughts in the same shallow way he was doing to her. She saw herself in his mind, felt the weight of her own body in his arms as he carried her bridal style through the woods, onto the ship.

He had been triumphant, and yet there had been no need for him to carry her like that. He could have had a Stormtrooper do it. He could have used the Force to float her along, but she sensed that he wanted to hold her, to press her body against his in an approved way. He had been filled with relief when he learned that she had seen the map because it meant that he could take her with him.

With a grunt, he shut her out of his thoughts, and his mask was turned towards her. Although she couldn’t be sure, she guessed that they were making eye contact, and his chest was heaving. She would have given one hundred rations to be able to see his face.

“What-” she whispered, but he turned and left the room before she could finish.

\--

Kylo Ren did not take his second failure well. Alone in his room, he paced the floor, dragging his unsheathed saber against the ground with a screech of burning metal. He held it limply in his hand, just low enough to the ground so that the tip skimmed the top of his metal floor, lighting the metal up into white red welts that singed through his boots as he walked across them.

The lines in the metal looked like fresh wounds, and Ren sucked in a breath through his teeth. He put his weapon away and took off his mask, tossing it onto his bed where it rolled uselessly against the thin pillow he failed miserably to sleep on every night.

He could never sleep. She couldn’t sleep either, that much he knew. In his mind’s eye he saw her ocean and her island. He tasted the reality of that dream to her and it came out through his lips as a low moan.

Rey had seen his weakness. He had wanted to keep this plucky, Force strong scavenger. He could tell that she was like him, Force sensitive and powerful, but lonely, always among strangers who didn’t understand her. And yet, Ren knew that he did understand this girl, even before she demonstrated her ability to use the same weapons that he did. She was his equal, and he felt called to her.

When he had realized that he wouldn’t have to kill her to get the droid, that he could simply take her with him and still be doing the First Order’s bidding, it had seemed too good to be true. And when he’d held her, even through his gloves and cloak, he’d been disturbed and alarmed by how much he liked holding her, all warm and earthy. It had been an impulsive choice, and now he was paying for it. He had been weak. She was an asset to him, to his cause. She would have to be brought into submission.

He shook his head, bashed a hand against his rib cage, and wished he had a knife nearby. Instead, he pressed his hand against the fading heat of the floor, pressing his hand to the exposed fault line he’d created in the metal, and winced at the sound of his singing flesh.

There would be hell to pay for this weakness. The only question was who would be the one doing the paying?

Supreme Leader was wise. He spoke of the virtues of not becoming entangled with other beings. Attachment is the death of power. Attachment makes you weak, and compassion is only for Jedis. And realistically, where were the Jedi these days? Dead, he reasoned. Dead, or about to be.

But not her. This girl had the Force and she was better at it than him, untrained as she was, and it seemed a monumental waste to let someone as talented as her fight against him when she could be turned to be on his side. Ren tried to imagine her dead, tried to imagine killing her. He knew exactly how it would go. He would have to use his lighsaber. He would immobilize her first. Prepare a transport for her body to send it to the Rebel base.

Like certain other memories, he would be visited by the image of her face in his head as he sat awake at night, trying to detach from the past.

He was unwilling to kill her. He wanted to fight her, but more than that, he wanted to own her, to control her powers and join her passion with his own.

Had that not been the way of masters throughout history? He could train her. If she was seduced by the Dark Side, then she would fall, and he could keep her. That was a normal impulse, he told himself. It was sensible and practical for him to try and salvage her skills.

But first, he needed that map.

\--

Rey snapped her head up when he came again to her cell again.

“Tell me,” was all he said. He was close to her now, very close, his mask near enough to her face that she could have smashed her head against it if she wanted to. But since she didn’t fancy a concussion, she held very still instead.

“No,” she said.

His voice level, he murmured, “I _will_ have it from you, Rey.”

Her name sounded odd on his lips. So different than Finn’s, which was warm and reassuring even when he was deeply troubled. If Finn’s voice was warm milk, Kylo’s automated purr was the sound of a ship about to start; full of promise and danger and adventure.

Like a gloved hand, she felt him in her brain, slipping between the sinews of herself deeper and deeper. It hurt this time, and she took a deep breath as she prepared to fight him.

Repelling his advances was like pushing her whole weight against a marble statue and feeling it grind as it moved. Kylo braced his gloved hand against the side of her restraining unit as fireworks lit up inside her brain, an explosion of pain and images flipping through her mind as Kylo’s mental energy flipped destructively through her thoughts. He was reckless, searching, and he traced the path of her resistance to gain access to the one scrap of knowledge he could never have.

She felt nauseous and ill, but she could see his mind now too. She saw a woman and a man, his grief, his fear, his loss. Acts of staggering violence. She saw it all, and he couldn’t get access to her brain, though tears streamed from her eyes from the pain and her hands were digging into her skin.

With one tremendous push, she forced him abruptly out of her brain and they pulled apart, gasping, sweating. She had hurt him, she could see that even with his mask off. Rey panted, exhausted and nauseous.

“Damn it, Rey,” Kylo’s mechanical voice growled. Ren slumped down on the ground in front of her, spent. Rey closed her eyes, trying to drown out the sound of her own hearbeat.

\--

She passed out, and Kylo Ren watched her face fall from tense and angry to relaxed and dreamlike. Sweat still beaded on her forehead, and her mouth parted slightly as her head tilted to one side. She dreamed, and almost without meaning to, Ren reached out to her with his mind, slipping into her dreams as gently as he knew how, staying on the edges of her, dreaming with her as her mind floated above a vast expanse of sand in a derelict ship. He felt her joy and her fear like they were his own.

Together, they crested a wave of sand and lifted off the ground and into the atmosphere with a burst of joy so acute that it felt like pain. He had not been prepared for these images, these feelings. He had not been prepared to remember what his life had been like before all this, and yet here he was, latched onto her mind like a leech as she soared through untroubled skies, untrained and weak but blissfully happy in her dreams.

He pulled away from her, releasing the small sinews of himself that had been touching her consciousness and behind his mask, Kylo Ren wanted to weep.


	2. Predictions

When Rey woke up, he was there, sitting with his back against the wall a few feet away from her, his mask off as he studied her face. His mask was in his lap and he leaned one elbow on it as he perused her at his leisure. His hair, dark and wavy, fell across his face in a way that made her wonder why he didn’t cut it. He didn’t say anything or react to her waking in any way. Curious, Rey reached for him in her head.

Gently, she tried to peek into his thoughts and see into his brain in the same gentle way he had done to her before. Kylo jerked as she made contact with his thoughts, and she felt a spasm of fear that wasn’t her own at the sight a dark shadow in his mind. He pushed her out, standing jerkily to his feet. His mask clattered noisily to the ground at his feet and he panted, evidently full of adrenaline.

“Don’t-” he said, his voice a low, human rumble.

“Why were you watching me?” Rey countered, unable to keep the note of incredulity out of her voice.

“I wanted to see what you dream about,” he said, the edge of a sneer joining the panic in his voice. It wasn’t an attractive tone, but she had to admit that his features were ruggedly handsome, even if he was an ass.

Rey felt her temper flare up in her chest. She’d always been a private person. “What gives you the right?”

“You’re angry I read your thoughts? You should get used to it,” he said.

“And yet you claim to be _better_ than your peers,” Rey sniff, pulling up a strain of personality she’d felt in his thoughts. Something about the way he saw people like Hux struck her as coolly disdainful. He thought them crass, and somehow, she knew it.

His pale and angular face contorted into an icy mask. “You don’t understand your situation. You cannot keep me out forever. I will hurt you, Rey.” He paused for a moment, and added as an afterthought. “I have to.”

“Good luck,” she snapped, an almost challenging edge creeping into her voice. Evidently, she had some kind of death wish.

He sighed, looking away from her face. “It can be easier the minute you say the word. Remember that.”

Out of nowhere, she felt him reaching deep into her brain with a surprise attack that stunned her. She grit her teeth, hissed, and pushed her whole mind against the weight of him as he bore into her with his thoughts, words and feelings running into her own until she could no longer tell where his mind began and hers ended.

She saw a middle aged man, his father, Han Solo, a blaster in his hand as he cleaned it. She saw a ship, dropping him off at a place far away. She saw him left there to be trained with Luke, and a grief at that separation that Rey understood immediately. Then, all she could see was blood.

She resisted, holding onto herself and her own mind to prevent herself from going insane. She pulled herself out of his head, focusing only on her own mind with its unstained memory, its clear light at the center. She took a few deep breaths and pushed back harder against the desperate edge his searching had taken. Inside her brain, he had become violent, tearing through everything as if he could destroy it all. She fought hard not to scream and won.

As abruptly as it had started, it ended. Rey slumped back in her restraining unit, feeling the beat of her heart and the rushing of blood in her ears. Her body had no strength in it, and Kylo staggered slightly, one hand pressed against his head as he breathed in ragged breaths.

“How?” he snarled, glaring at her. The single word was nearly an expletive on his tongue. She gathered that his little information gathering trip had been about as pleasant for him as it had been for her.

“Not so fun,” Rey said slowly, each word a massive effort, “when it’s happening to you.”

His chest still heaving, Kylo gave her half a grin that stretched across his long face and made him look five years younger. But was too exhausted to hold her head up anymore, and she leaned back again, the metal embrace of her restraining unit feeling somehow warm as she fell unconscious.

\--

He hadn’t meant to Force the restraining unit so that the ties were a fraction of an inch looser. He hadn’t meant to warm up the cold metal with his mind. The Force was strong but it wasn’t omnipotent. He couldn’t make her a cushion where there was none. He didn’t even want to do those things, it was just a reflex, like swatting a bug away or shielding his eyes from the light of a particularly bright sun. He had thought it and the kindness was done.

Weakness.

But he knew as he leaned against the wall, as far away from her as he could get, that he had mere hours before this limbo would end. He would have to tell the Supreme Leader what had happened here, if Hux hadn’t done it already.

He would have to throw her before the mercy of these people. His people. He didn’t dwell in the possibility of regret, but in a place of fear and inadequacy. He wasn’t so much of a fool that he couldn’t see it, but rather he used it to his own advantage. His fear made him stronger. His hatred made him stronger. This probably explained why the peace he felt around this girl was so exhausting. There could be no other explanation. The Sith ways were the most rational, the most practical.

 _The power of the Dark Side is strong, and peace is a lie. There is only passion_ , he reminded himself. But in that small room with that exhausted, sweaty young woman, Kylo he wanted to stay with her. The Supreme Leader would want her for that alone, never mind her glaringly obvious potential. Ren could relate.

If this girl would just _yield_ , just let him have her mind, then things would be easier. They could get down to the business of making her strong. They could destroy Snoke together. The thought was intoxicating. Yes, he would train her himself. She would never be alone again. He could give her that.

He walked over to her side again, leaning close to her. It was better to see her like this, without the mask filtering his view. It was better to be close to her and breathe in the faint smell of her body in this sterile space. She smelled _good_ , like earth and herbs.

Gently, he reached a gloved finger out to touch her face, tracing it across her cheekbones. “You will yield to me, Rey, or we’ll both be destroyed.”

Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice and he withdrew his hand, suddenly ashamed at having touched her when she wasn’t awake to defend herself. She let out a startled little breath, blinking hard at his face so close to hers.

Ren didn’t move, just hovered there, very near her, breathing heavily.

Did she sense his weakness? Maybe, because she murmured, “You could let me out of this. We could fight like equals.”

“I would destroy you,” Ren drawled.

Rey knew that, but it hadn’t stopped her from asking. This inactivity was driving her mad. “There is good in you,” she whispered. “I can see it. You felt it when you met me, and you feel it now.”

He felt her reach out to him with her thoughts, trying to push past the weak defenses he’d put up against her. He couldn’t let her in now, because if she could sense his feelings, then she would know that what he felt right now was _longing_.

Ren wanted to touch her with his gloves off. He wanted to reach out to her and run his hands across her cheek, twine them in her hair and watch it fall in loose tendrils around her face. A pathetic impulse, but it certainly was vigorous.

Instead, he said, “Rey, what do you think is going to happen to you if you don’t give it to me?”

“I’ll keep fighting you,” she breathed, her eyes shining.

“They’ll make me kill you, Rey,” he murmured, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.

Rey felt herself bristle at that, an image of the Supreme Leader she’d seen in Ren’s head flashing in front of her eyes.

“You follow your master like a dog. No good and true master would-”

“You cannot understand the power of the Dark Side, untrained as you are,” he growled. “But I could show you.”

Rey thought about that and decided that she didn’t believe him. It was a long shot, but if she could remind him that he was human and make him doubt his master, there was still a chance she could save him. If he decided not to murder her, that would be icing on the cake.

“You would lead me away from the light when you can’t even do it yourself? I’ve seen it, Ren. I’ve seen the light in you. It’s the source of your fear.”

Ren groaned, running a hand through his hair. His hand made a fist, and he came suddenly very close to her, bracing his hands on either side of her restrained head so that she could feel his breath on her cheeks and see straight into his dark eyes.

A strange tingling started in the base of her chest and seemed to spread out through her hands. It brought a flush to her cheeks and she was suddenly distracted by his physical closeness. She felt a sort of tugging in her chest that she couldn’t identify. It felt like there was a magnetized thruster in her chest that was responding very slowly to a remote start. It made her breaths come faster.

She knew that the Jedi had sworn off physical relationships because they were distracting and inhibited the Force. Rey suddenly understood that particular dictum, because her physical closeness to Ren’s body was strongly dimming her ability to resist him when his eyes were blazing into hers like that. Too late, she regretted wishing he would take the mask off.

His voice was nearly a whisper. “You’re right. And what would be the best way to destroy that light in me, do you think? Would it be killing someone I care about? Because I think that would be an excellent way to do it.”

His words were threatening, but he looked so sad when he said them. It was like he was begging her for something and yet apologizing for it at the same time, and all the time his eyes watched her lips.

“You’re nothing like Vader,” she insisted.

“You compare me to your Finn,” he growled, drawing a fraction of an inch closer to her as if he wanted to breathe the words right into her mind. There was an edge to his voice.

“Finn overcame his circumstances,” she mumbled. She didn’t want to talk about Finn.

Ren gave her a long look that lingered on her lips again, and she felt her heartbeat quicken to a sharp staccato in her chest. He entered her mind again, very gently this time, and Rey quickly pushed the thoughts of his lips out of her head and thought of bracing, good-natured Finn. Ren sighed sharply and pushed away from her, turning to face away from her.

Without looking at her, he said, “He’ll try to save you, your Finn. Then I’ll get him, too.”

Rey let out a half-cry and struggled forward in her restraints, the tingling in her chest erupting into a small volcano of static prickles. She felt hot to the tips of her toes, and she wished the pull between them was something she could physically tug on and drag him back around to face her so that she could glare into his fathomless eyes.

“Why. Why do this? I _know_ there is good in you. Everyone wants you to come back.”

“I can only go forward.”

“Han misses you.”

She wasn’t sure how she knew that or why she said it, but she just did, and it felt right to say it to him. Some part of her hoped that it might comfort the raw wound she’d felt within him. Another part of her hoped it hurt like hell.

“And you know all about missing family, don’t you, Rey?”

His words hit her like a physical blow and Rey gasped, half in outrage and half in surprise. Ren finally turned around, probably trying to see how badly his comment had managed to hurt her. His face was infuriatingly curious and blank again. He was like a scientist about to dissect her, and Rey wanted to crawl out of her skin and lunge at him.

“That’s none of your business.”

“I know everything about you. We’re two of a kind, you and I,” he murmured, crossing his arms and drawing a few steps closer to her.

“I’m nothing like you,” she said, more to wound him than anything else. And wounding him seemed to be her only hobby lately.

“I can make you stronger. I can make you independent from everyone, you would never have to be afraid again. With me, you would never be alone,” he murmured, and slowly, his hand reached out to touch her cheek. It was such a light touch that she nearly didn't feel it, and he traced it down her cheek and along her jaw, his eyes following his hand and lingering at her mouth.

Deliberately, Rey wetted her lips with her tongue and Ren drew in a sharp breath. She knew that he felt it too. Frowning, he opened his mind to her again, like a door being opened in Rey’s thoughts. It was so easy to flow down the channel to see where his thoughts were hiding.

His mind was full of excitement. He had something to show her. It was two of them standing side by side, always together. She saw the two of them eating together, co-pilots, sparring partners, sharing a bed and holding each other when either of them woke up screaming. He created that world in his head for her to see, and she sensed that it was as real for him as it was for her. He wanted it.

“We’re the same, Rey. We can never be happy with anyone else,” he breathed, his voice trembling.

Had he known that he was presenting her with something she wanted more than almost anything? He was offering her kinship, a bond that she could never have with someone who didn’t have the Force, who hadn’t been born into this conflict with skills that other people wanted to profit off of. Had he know that, or was the same loneliness that was eating her up inside working on him, too?

“Why are you doing this?” Rey said, pleading with him. She was being tempted. She knew that this was a seduction and she was falling for it. She didn’t want to be alone anymore. She wanted to grow stronger, to pass time with someone who understood her. She barely knew him but she knew Ren was that person, and yet he was the exact wrong man for the job.


	3. Gaps

“We could destroy the First Order,” Ren countered, reading her thoughts.

“You won’t,” Rey murmured. She kept her eyes closed. “And I’m probably supposed to kill you.”

“You can’t. I can’t even kill myself, Rey. Maker knows that I’ve tried,” he muttered.

“Why haven’t you killed me?” Rey said, her eyes opening again at Ren’s somewhat alarming confession. She shoved his comment aside because she didn’t have the resources to pity him, and anyway, something about that felt insulting.

He looked down at her with a look of intense calm on his aristocratic face. His eyes trained on her, and a hungry, possessive expression crossed his face as he murmured, “Because I like you, Rey. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve liked anyone? Years.”

“Things would be different if you came back. You can accept the light-”

“Stop wasting your breath,” he snapped, his fingers tightening slightly on her chin. He took a sharp step back and the place where his hand had touched her felt cold.

Unexpectedly, the restraints on her unit snapped sharply open with a metallic clank that echoed around the room. Surprised, she simply laid there for a moment in the same reclined position, not believing her eyes. Ren’s eyes tracked her every hint of movement. Slowly, she raised a hand to her face and scratched an itch on her cheek that had been driving her crazy, not daring to believe that this wasn’t some sort of elaborate trap.

Ren made no movement towards her as she sat slowly up, prying her stiff body out of the pose it had been locked into for nearly a day. Once she was sitting upright, bent at her waist still because she didn’t trust her legs, she watched as Ren produced something from within the folds of his cloak, apparently unaffected by the intense exchange he’d just unceremoniously broken them out of. Rey felt like she’d been woken from a dream.

In shocked silence, she watched him withdraw two ration packets from his pocket, the same ones she’d spent her whole life trying to collect. With a wry smile, he tossed it to her and she caught it. It was still sealed, a half portion that would have taken her all day to earn.

Raising an eyebrow, he said, “Well, go on, scavenger, eat. I don’t intend to starve you.”

Warily, Rey pried open the packet and chewed on the green substance, its familiar vitamin soaked flavor curling on her tongue. She’d had better food since leaving Jakku, and she hadn’t missed the stuff.

He watched her eat with an intensity that belied his casual pose. He looked hungry. He always looked hungry.

“Where did you get this?” Rey asked, trying to shake herself out of his spell.

“From your home planet, if you want to know the truth,” he murmured with a slight chuckle. “I thought it was novel. We feed the storm troopers something similar, although we don’t underfeed them like you were.”

A touch of pride entered his voice. She thought of Finn’s strong body and took another bite of the vitamin greens. The bitter flavor sobered her.

“No,” Rey said through a mouthful of food, “After all, what good is an underfed slave?”

His faint smile vanished. “It isn’t like that.”

Rey just shrugged and ate the last of her portion. She felt him in her brain then, felt him mining her thoughts on the surface for whatever visuals were occupying her mind. Unwillingly, she thought of fighting him in that green forest, the fear she’d felt as she ran from him, her blaster shooting wildly as she tried to remember what Han had said about using it. She had been afraid, especially of Ren and his lightsaber’s red and jagged edges. In that moment, it had seemed the very embodiment of fear, of the Dark Side. She found the image hard to reconcile with the figure of the man with dark eyes in front of her.

Ren’s eyes found hers. “You were right to fear me then, but I’m not going to hurt you.”

He reached into his cloak again and this time he pulled out the metal base of his saber. Rey forced herself not to flinch as it glinted in the light, surprisingly small and unassuming. Ren just looked at it for a moment, and then looked up into her eyes.

“Catch,” he said quietly, and tossed it hilt first to her. She caught it before it hit the ground- just a reflex, really. She should have let it clatter away and let it get damaged. Instead, she held it in her hand, solid and heavy. It was still warm from being pressed against his body.

“Try it,” he murmured, his dark eyes pensive and attentive. “Don’t be afraid.”

Tremblingly, not daring to believe her luck, she engaged the saber and watched with fascinated horror as the kyber crystal did its grim work, sending a blood red sword into the air that cackled and vibrated. It felt unsteady and handmade in her hands, with so much potential for violence. The side vents drenched her hands in blood-red light.

“Strike at me,” Ren commanded. She met his eyes and her internal response was loud enough for him to hear it through the Force, “ _No.”_

“You must, if you’re going to become a Jedi. You’ll have to kill someone. Why not me?”

His eyes were a flat, unsettling black, and his expressive face was hardened into an unreadable mask of detachment. He watched her hungrily. Rey tried to disengage the weapon, to throw it away, but she found her hands were suddenly rendered immobile, filled with pins and needles like she used to get when she fell asleep with her arm pressed too tightly against the wall of her home in the fallen AT-AT. It hurt.

“Stop,” Rey said.

“No,” Ren said quietly. “Go on, Rey, strike me down. Use your hate.”

“I don’t hate you,” Rey stammered as she felt her arms begin to fill with prickles as he forced them to move, slowly, toward him, the saber clutched in her unwilling hands.

“Ren, stop it,” she insisted, tears welling up in her eyes. She tried to call on the Force to shut him out, but a panicky heaviness was filling her mind and she couldn’t get him out of her. Panic made her weak.

“Stop it,” she said again, keeping her voice level with an effort as her hand moved steadily closer to him. She was dragged out of her seat.

He didn’t stop, but closed his eyes as the sword moved slowly towards him. He was going to make her kill him. Oh, gods, he was going to do it. Rey tugged at her own body with a useless effort that did nothing to stop her legs from from moving.

“Ren,” she said. “Knock it off. Don’t make me do this.”

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, and she felt him reach out to her with his mind.

Rey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She thought of water and an island, she thought of big open skies. She thought of Han Solo, and Finn, and Leia. She exhaled, and with one tremendous push, she shoved Ren so violently out of her body that it sent rthe saber flying across the room. It clattered to a standstill on the metal ground.

Rey pushed herself frantically away from him, skidding backwards because she didn’t dare try to stand up again. Ren, haggard and dark, rose to his feet unsteadily, one hand clutching his head, and stormed over to her. He lifted her off the ground with the Force so that she was hovering, her feet dangling and her eyes just at his level. He wasn’t choking her. It didn’t hurt, he just held her there as if he wanted to be able to glare her without stooping.

He eyes bored a hole into her head. “How? How are you stronger than me?”

“I don’t know,” Rey said. “I don’t want to kill you.”

“Traitor,” he hissed at her. He took several deep breaths, closing his eyes until he seemed to calm down. “I ask so little of you, Rey,” he murmured, and he was close enough to her face to kiss her as she hovered next to him, trembling, furious, and horrified by the self-loathing she felt in him.

She had the sense that it had been an elaborate test. Was he trying to force her into exercising her skill, or had he genuinely wanted to die?

“Why not both, scavenger?” he whispered, reading her thoughts.

“Put me down,” Rey said tartly.

“I will have the answer from you,” he growled, and she felt him bore into her again with his mind, rooting savagely in her brain again. She fought hard, thinking of anything instead of what he was after. She thought of the way he’d looked in the forest, the way he’d talked to her.

She reached out for his mind, reach inside to see the world through the eyes of a little boy, a scared teenager. She found the light in his center and she reached for it with her mind, grasping it, pushing herself into it so that she could see the image of-.

“Enough!” Ren snarled, pulling away from her, leaving her suspended in the air like a rag doll as he slammed the connection between them closed.

“I saw it, Ren. I saw your light. You’re capable of love,” she babbled, floating uselessly in the air.

“What do you know of my heart, Rey?” he snarled.

Rey paused, thinking of the morsels of his life that were bright. “I’m one of the bright spots. You want me.”

Ren turned away from her, beating one hand against his rib. “Then you see the impossibility of my situation. They will force me to destroy you, or they will destroy you themselves. I cannot do it, Rey. I’m so _weak_.”

“Why fight? It’s killing you,” Rey said.

“Because I cannot give up everything I’ve worked for just for one plucky scavenger with pretty eyes,” he murmured, seeming to calm down.

She didn’t have anything to say to that. He spoke again, his voice a low murmur. “It’s strange. Usually, I become enraged at defiance. Yours just makes me want to die.”

“Let me down,” Rey whispered.

“Your wish is my command.” His voice was a black hole.

He set her down gently, but when her feet touched the floor she found she had no strength to stand. It had been a long time since she’d stood up on her own volition, and she found her legs unprepared for the job of holding her up. She staggered slightly and prepared to fall. With one smooth movement, Ren caught her, and he held her somewhat stiffly in his arms as she tried to catch her breath.

He was warm, and she felt the sinews of his muscles beneath the fabric of his cloak. His long, regal face peered down into hers. There was a long pause as they both absorbed their sudden, explosive physical closeness. Ren didn’t seem too happy about it, but he didn’t let go, either. Deliberately, Rey relaxed slightly into him.

He reached out to her again with his thoughts. She let him in, and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he probed her mind for memories. She felt him shudder with pleasure when she didn’t fight him but let him swim through her.

Rey closed her eyes and leaned her face against his chest, searching in her own heart for anything to show him that it wasn’t too late. He smelled masculine and expensive and she enjoyed the moment of human closeness that was turning out to be more physical contact with a man she was attracted to than she’d had in most of her life.

She thought of the same image that he’d show her of the two of them, dressed in white this time as they raced each other on speeders in Coruscant’s skies, dropping down for drinks at a bar, going on a supply run and ribbing each other about blaster accuracy. She stopped just shy of showing him his mother. His hands tightened around her and she heard him breathe in the smell of her hair, his hand on the back of her head as he drank her in.

There was a clang on the door outside and their mental connection snapped. Hux, his voice low and furious, snarled through the comm unit, “The Supreme Leader wants us, Ren. Don’t mess this up for me.”

The line went dead.

His eyes found hers and he seemed to be withdrawing into himself, shielding his thoughts from her. He was trying to get himself under control again, but she didn’t want him to. She was _this_ close to showing him what was waiting for him on the other side and she’d be damned if she lost him now.

He had seen her point of view and she had _tempted_ him, and now she was pressed up against him, warm and alive against his rigidity. She saw her body as an asset and she knew that she wanted him. She reached a hand up around his neck and drew his face down to hers until he was centimeters from her.

His eyes were very wide and he seemed to be holding his breath, his fingers curling into her back as she pressed herself against him. His head tilted down to hers and they reached for each other.

“Okay?” she asked, testing his reaction. Under her touch, she could feel him nearly coming apart at the seams, and the nod of his head gave her what she needed.

“Ren,” she breathed, and pressed her mouth against his. It was as natural as breathing.

—

Ren’s first thought when Rey kissed him was that she tasted _good_. She felt good. Her body pressing against him sent a wave of human feeling through him like a blaster shot. Everything about Rey’s kiss was warm and hard.

He pushed through a moment of paralysis and moved his hand lower so that he was holding onto her lower back with one hand and gripping the back of her head with the other, pressing her up against him like he was trying to physically absorb her into his body. They lived violent lives, Ren and Rey, and their kiss was no exception. He dragged her against him, seized with the wild urge to have everything she could give him, right now. It might be his last chance. It might change her mind.

Kissing her felt like the natural extension of everything that had been building up between them, and the Force connection he felt with her ripped open, a gaping chasm between them that gave him access to her every thought and feeling. She wanted him, and yet she wanted him to change. Impossible. Delicious.

He kissed her harder, his mouth opening against hers as her hand gripped his hair in a tug that was just shy of painful. He walked forward while he held her up, pressing her back against the wall of the base so that she could wrap her legs around his waist and hold them there, rubbing herself against him.

When he felt her pressing up against him like that, Ren moaned into her mouth and moved his mouth to her neck, tasting the salt of her skin and reveling in the feeling of her hands on his hair. She was all edges and smooth lines, the dense muscles of her lean body sunbaked and smooth under his gloves. With his hands behind her neck, he ripped his gloves off without breaking the kiss and finally, _finally_ took her face in his bare hands, tilting her head back to kiss her deeper as his thumb traced across her cheek.

Was he holding her too tightly? Was he going to break her? His fear radiated through their connection and she felt Rey’s answering grip on his arm in a firm rebuttal of his fear. She was so strong, so durable in his arms. She was the only person who could handle him without breaking or running away and _gods_ he wanted to be inside her. 

When her hands reached under the neckline of his shirt, touching his skin like she couldn’t bear the layer that was between them, Ren hissed at the feel of her hands making contact. It made his head spin and he pulled away from her mouth to bury his face in her neck as she splayed her hands out on the back of his neck and upper shoulders. He wanted to melt into her and cease to exist.

The crook of her neck smelled of that same earthy fragrance that seemed to seep from her pores, and he licked at the moisture on her skin, wanting to experience this moment with every sense he had. Her hands turned desperate, clutching at him, tugging at the fabric of his flight suit like she wanted him to take it off. His hands moved to her waist, lifting her sharply up so that she was balanced right on top of his dick. She moaned his name like an expletive and he nearly expired.

“Ben.”

He wanted to respond, to Force them both onto the ground and see what it felt like touch her with more than just his hands. He wanted to let her hair down, feel her on top of him, run his hands down her sides. He could never let her go after this, because there was no one else for him now.

 _Ben._                                                                          

Ren pulled away as a sudden icy clarity descended on him. This wasn’t who he was. She had tempted him and he had given into her like a horny teenager with a crush. This couldn’t be allowed to go on. He was not Ben Solo, and he never could be that person again, no matter how much he wanted Rey. He didn’t even know her last name. Did she even have one? Did he?

She tilted her head to stare at him inquisitively, those smart bright eyes flashing into his like two marbles. He felt her confusion, and, yes, her desire. She made no attempt to shut him out, but her hand wrapped more securely around his neck, holding him close as her lips parted.

“Come home,” she whispered, her eyes pleading. She was looking up at him with perfect trust and Ren couldn’t bear it for a second longer. He waved a hand over her eyes and she passed out, limp in his arms again. It was like he had killed her. One minute she was vibrant and writhing against him with a passion that had nearly set him on fire, and two words later and he’d killed the spark in her eyes because he was too weak to touch her and come out the other side with his sanity intact.

She was small, limp, and vulnerable again and he hated himself for doing it to her. But hate was powerful. Hate he could use.

He reminded himself that he had to do this in order to survive. He had to do this to get the map. He had to do this so that she could go on living, so that they could be together. This was the path he’d chosen when he’d renounced his father’s name, and he couldn’t let one person get in the way of his goals. Or, rather, if she got in the way he would drag her along with him, whether she wanted to or not. 

He could never be Ben Solo again, not even for her. But he vowed that one day, he would hear Rey moan his true name. One day, when they were free and she was his. He would make it up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hot in here, isn't it?


	4. Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! Please enjoy this angsty sexual tension that I made for you.

As he strapped her back into the restraining unit, Kylo Ren imagined every click of the locks was a seal he was placing over his feelings, locking him down further and further until he was as buttoned up as possible, an iron cage of a man. He locked the clasps himself, without using the Force, because he needed the symbolism to meditate to.

If he was going to face Snoke, he needed absolute control on his emotions. There was room for passion on the Dark Side, sure, but he could present no weakness before his master. None. And that was what Rey was, the living embodiment of his own weakness.

He desired her. She would attach him firmly to the world and attempt to lead him away from the ultimate source of his power, and he simply couldn’t allow that. Would he brave a lifetime of wanting her for it? He didn’t know. What he did know was that Hux was going to get to the Supreme Leader before he did if he waited much longer, and that he had to leave.

He tightened the last strap and Rey gasped, waking up from the unconsciousness he’d subjected her to. She struggled, feeling the locks on her wrists and beginning to panic on instinct. Her eyes blazed, and she looked at him in confusion.

Her mind was on his in an instant but she could find no purchase there. She was safely shut out, but she understood without the link anyway. Her eyes widened as she guessed where he was going.

“Ren, don’t do this,” she said, shifting through his feelings to find something that he had taken care to make sure she couldn’t get at.

“I can hide my feelings too, Rey.” His voice, he was relieved to hear, was level, and she couldn’t find a trace of the feelings he’d shown her before. If Rey couldn’t find them, then neither could the Supreme Leader.

“Ren, the Supreme Leader will kill you. You know that. You’ve got to-”

“Rey,” he said quietly, stooping to pick up his mask again. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be okay.”

Her brows knit and she looked suddenly bereft as he put his mask back on. With the mask on, he was nearly as separated from her as he could possibly be. His thoughts echoed around his head in a pleasant, detached way.

She said, “I thought you felt it too,” and looked away from him as he walked out of the room.

\--

He passed a stray stormtrooper on his way to the hall where Snoke had his court, and, an idea seizing him, Ren stopped before him. The two masked men looked at each other for a moment, the trooper in respectful attention and Ren in the grip of a cold storm of an idea that he held at arms length away from himself, never looking at it directly.

He probed the stormtrooper’s feelings and sensed that this was a low ranking soldier, obedient but inexperienced. Weak minded.

“Go stand guard in the cell of the captured scavenger. Do not leave your post unless I expressly command you to,” Ren said crisply. The well-trained trooper hesitated for only a second before he left his post and walked to carry out the orders.

Ren resolutely did not think about what exactly he had just done. His heart was an iron gong in his chest.

\--

Snoke filled the room, the power of the Supreme Leader nearly barreling Ren over. His passion was threatening to tear through his skin as Supreme Leader said, “This scavenger resisted _you_?”

Confident that his true feelings were concealed, he dared to counter, “She is strong with the force. Untrained but stronger than she knows.”

Did he sound proud of her? He wasn’t sure. The part of him that understood how he felt about Rey was safely buried under everything else. All he knew was that he needed to keep her on board, to prove her utility and his own ability to extract the information.

“And the droid?” he boomed.

Hux drawled, “Ren thought they were no longer valuable to us, that the girl was all we needed; as a result the droid has likely been returned to the hands of the enemy. They may have the map already.”

Snoke mused, “Then the resistance must be destroyed before they get to Skywalker.”

Ren didn’t care about that. His body felt like it was finely tuned, synched up to the one being in this entire base who interested him more than his master. The link between them still surged in his chest, but he kept himself away from it, cut it out of his thoughts and maintained the seal on his feelings. Nothing leaked out.

“We have their location. We tracked their reconnaissance ship to the Ellenium system,” Hux said with a satisfied tone.

“Then we will crush them once and for all. Prepare the weapon.”

Hux walked away, confident in his victory. For once, Ren didn’t care.

“Supreme Leader, I can get the map from the girl. I just need your guidance,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.

“If what you say about this girl is true, bring her to me,” Snoke boomed, and Ren felt a greedy, curious energy radiating off his master like smoke.

Ren didn't let himself feel sick until he was safely out of Supreme Leader’s Force radius.

\--

Rey was surprised when the storm trooper entered the cell. She’d been happy enough to seethe in solitude, trying in vain to sense Kylo Ren’s presence in the huge base, but it hadn’t amounted to anything. There were too many people, and even though she’d been able to follow his movements for a while once he left the cell, he’d been swallowed up in a cavernous room and lost to her.

The stormtrooper had entered the room with no warning or notice, and she had a crazy moment where she thought it was Ren, come back in a disguise, preparing to leave with her. But it hadn’t been, and the silent figure just stood there, blindly guarding her. Had this been Ren’s idea? Send in a guard to remind her not to humble her? Put someone before her who she couldn’t manipulate?

A stormtrooper couldn’t develop feelings for her, so maybe he was hoping that she’d be less able to manipulate him. At that thought, an idea appeared to her as if handed to her on a platter. A clear, calm voice in her head suggested that she should simply reach into this guard and change his mind, the way Ren had tried to do to her.

It couldn’t be that easy. And yet, as she reached out for his head and found him, Rey found that it _was_. It took a few tries, but when she finally felt her mind make contact with the trooper’s brain and hold it, she felt a rush of satisfaction unlike anything she’d experienced in the past.

She almost shouted for joy when she heard the trooper drop his weapon. It had been sheer instinct to Force his thoughts, and her touch in his head was less of a forcible movement and more of an aggressive suggestion that twisted his will to merge with hers.

She stood up, stabilizing herself for only a moment before she strode away from the room that had held her prisoner for a day and produced some of the most vivid feelings of her life. Picking up the weapon, Rey gave the strange little room one last glance, sent a mental apology that she only half meant to Ren, and jogged lithely out of the room.

\--

Ren felt her escape. He was walking back to her cell, filled with a numbness that was both a blessing and somewhat alarming. He felt her breakthrough through the Force like a little static shock on his skin, tickling him in a way that reminded him unpleasantly of the feel of her fingers on his neck.

She’d figured it out. He could feel her joy and triumph. He could also feel the mental apology she sent his way, but it tasted bitter when he realized that they were well and truly linked through the Force now. If she escaped, he’d be feeling her like this for a long time to come without ever being able to touch her. Ren quickened his steps, both fearing and hoping what he already knew to be true.

He made it to the interrogation cell. The guard was gone. Rey was gone. He stared at the place where her body had been just a moment before, and he was filled with a wave of emotion that his previous numbness had blinded him to. He was defenseless before it, and his saber found its way to his hand before he realized what was happening.

_This wasn’t what he wanted_. She was gone. Was he angry about this because she had defied him again? Put his neck on the line? Endangered his cause? Yes, all that was true. Rey was gone because she was as skilled as he was, maybe better and she had managed to game the system.

And along side that raged a sense of outrage and loss. They were supposed to be together, her and him, fighting side by side. They were supposed to be a team. He knew she had felt that, even wanted it, and yet she had chosen to leave him. And yet, hadn’t he done this to himself by sending her that stormtrooper to her like a gift?

Igniting his saber, Ren let the rage that had been his North Star flare into a roar in his chest, because he knew that he had only himself to blame. As he threw his whole body into the act of destroying the cell one saber strike at a time, he knew that he was the reason she had escaped. She had tempted him and he had failed the test, given into her, even _wanted_ to give into her.

He had sent that guard with the secret hope that she would flee, be spared, escape Snoke. It was the part of him that was weak and wanted to avoid her sufferings increasing at his hands. He didn’t want her to end up in Snoke’s grip, she deserved to be happy. No, he corrected himself, she deserved to be powerful. And wasn’t Snoke the one who could give her that? Couldn’t he himself have given her that? The contradictory feelings didn’t play nicely together in his chest, and he let out savage blow after blow onto the metal walls.

Maybe part of him was hoping that she would fail to escape and prove herself less worthy. If she hadn’t been strong enough to escape, maybe he would have loved her less. But she hadn’t, and now he was stuck with an empty cell, a directionless desire, and a burning rage that stemmed from the most powerful part of himself that he knew.

Rage flowered in his chest that she had left him here. Rage at himself for his own weakness. Rage at everything because it seemed there was no hope in hell that they would ever get a happy ending out of all this.

But he knew what to do with anger, and once the cell was sufficiently destroyed he turned his mind towards the matter of tracking her down, strapping her onto the nearest stationary object, and breaking her will so that she would never leave his side again. It was a black and ugly impulse, but he needed that strength now, unkind as it was. He had to find her. He had to track her down and lock her up forever for this.

She couldn’t get away with it, and he could never come into this room again.

\--

Ren gave swift orders. “She’s testing her powers. Every minute she’s free she becomes more dangerous. Lock down the hangars, she’s going to try and steal a ship. We need-”

He felt him then, his father on the base, a distinct sensation that dawned on him like a cloud passing over the sun. At that moment, he also felt Rey feeling the same thing, her heart doing a little leap in her chest that he felt as a ghostly imprint on his own. How like her to still be causing him emotions, even now.

She was close to him, that he could sense. Very close, but hiding herself, trying to keep her feelings closed off from him. But Kylo Ren was good at tracking, and her life force seemed nearly to tug at his heart when she was this close.

He would find her before Han did.

\--

Rey held her breath as Ren walked by, barking orders to the stormtrooper to hunt her down and cut her off. She quelled the stirring emotion in her chest. She wasn’t sure if physical proximity was an amplifier of her position, but she could certainly feel him and wasn't going to give herself away to him if she could help it.

Not again, anyway.

She thought of the ocean, imaged herself skimming across it like a gull. She stilled herself, feeling the energy of the Force around her like a billion stars tickling her skin. This was when she sensed Han and-

Her feelings betrayed her. Ren was reaching out to her, tentatively trying to gain access to her head from nearby. He wanted to see her, but she ignored him. She had nothing to say to him, especially not after feeling his rage on discovering her gone.

Padding slowly backwards, she shied away from where he’d been standing, praying that he would just move on, let her leave. Behind her, Rey felt a static cackle on her skin and she closed her eyes and sighed, already dreading the conversation she was about to have. Without looking, she knew that he was standing ten feet away from her and he was furious, nearly blinded by his rage.

“What did you think was going to happen, Rey?” he murmured. She turned around, grimacing, and looked at him. He was wearing his mask again. She wished he wasn’t.

He said, “Did you think you could just leave? Don’t you understand who you are?” His voice was rising in strength and anger. She felt it swell in his chest as he breathed in and out. He seethed, “I told you what was going to happen, Rey. I _told_ you.”

“Take your mask off,” Rey breathed. At her side, her hand traced the hard polycarbonate of her stolen blaster, but she knew better than to try and shoot it. He would anticipate it. He was good at anticipating her, especially now. Everything was different since the kiss. It was like she was magnetized towards him. The tension between them made her head ache.

“No,” he said shortly.

“Scared, Ren?” she groused.

“I’d really like to get back to my life, Rey. Either you come willingly or I knock you out again.”

Rey’s eyes flicked to his light saber and the spot where his mouth would be behind his mask, and Rey opened her mind to him and felt him barrel into her thoughts, all desperate and anticipatory. He was trying to show her something- Snoke. Snoke wanted her for her powers. Snoke wanted her and he needed her and he was so scared.

When she didn’t speak, he added, “This is happening.” As if she didn't realize it already. Rey took a very deep breath.

“I’m leaving. Come with me, Ren,” she said, and she knew that this would be the last time she would make him this offer.

Ren clenched his hand into a fist and countered, “Finn and Han are here, too. I know you’ve felt it. Come with me and we can spare them.”

“Spare yourself,” Rey countered hotly.

“Finn is here for you more than anything else. I can’t imagine what you’ll do to that poor boy.” She could hear the edge of a grin in his voice but the tension that radiated off him did not abate. No, Ren was deadly serious.

“It’s not the same. You know it’s not the same as-” she stopped herself, unsure what exactly it wasn’t the same as.

Everything on Ren’s side of the link went stone cold and steely as he prepared himself to fight her. But she saw something before he got himself together, a wisp of a memory that startled Rey almost out of her plans.

“You sent that guard in on purpose,” she murmured, and in the split second after he registered her words and his shock spilled across the channel between them, she saw him move. He strode forward, closing the distance between them and caging her between his body and the wall.

“I want you,” he said, as if in explanation, his modulated voice sending ripples up her spine.

She needed to see his face. Reaching out, she fumbled with the catch of his mask where she’d seen him press before, her hands trembling. He didn’t stop her. She found it, pressed down, and lifted the heavy metal mask off his head. She held it on her hip with one hand and stared up at Kylo Ren, who was tall and looming above her. So serious and yet so young, his mobile mouth slightly parted as he stared at her.

“This isn’t up for debate,” he growled, his naked voice making the hairs on her neck stand up.

She sighed. Very gently, she stood up on her tiptoes, inching her mouth closer to his very slowly, her eyes never leaving his. She wanted him to see her, wanted him to watch her. Her eyes flitted deliberately to his lips and back up to his eyes, and she raised an eyebrow. It was a question that she couldn’t bear to voice out loud.

He answered in kind, pressing his mouth onto hers again, and it was the same as before- hot and deliberate and tearing a hole in her chest. She clawed at his cloak, that stupid heap of fabric that was keeping him swathed in black.

The link between them gaped open like a black hole inside of a brilliant sun, and Rey wallowed in the feel of his mouth on hers, his hands on her back, his hair brushing her cheeks. She was going to have to leave him, and in response to that feeling, Ren gripped her so tight that it hurt.

She shoved hard at his chest- _let go!_ \- and he pulled his mouth off hers.

She took a deep breath, thought of the ocean, and put her hand on the back of his neck. Closing her eyes, she reached into Ren’s brain and quickly turned off the part of him that kept him conscious, like he’d done to her many times. Ren fell unconscious the way a light turns off. It was startling how easy it had been to simply undo him. One minute he was Kylo Ren and the next he was man with no thoughts in his head. How strange to have that much control over another person _._

But she had little time to revel in her triumph. She hadn’t anticipated the sheer weight of Ren’s hulking body falling down onto her own without his consciousness there to hold him up. She collapsed under him with a little cry, struggling to keep him from hitting his head on his way down as his massive weight crumpled on her and she sunk to the floor.

Her arms went under his and she slowed their fall, landing them in a heap on the floor. Gods, he weighed a ton under all that black.

He would hate that she had done this to him, but there was nothing else she do. He had cornered her, given her no choice. Even the Sith sometimes give quarter, but not him. He would have tried to stop her, and she had to go. Gingerly extricating herself from the black mass of his body, she stood up, brushed his hair out of his face, and set his mask down next to him.

“Till we meet again.”

She was alone in her head again, and it felt like being naked. She fled. 


	5. Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have repetitive strain injury on my hands, so I recently bought a new ergonomic keyboard to make typing hurt less. It's been sort of a slow adjustment to get used to it so there may be more typos than normal in this chapter.
> 
> I strongly recommend anyone who writes a lot (cough all of you cough) to get one to take care of your wrists and fingers. Chronic pain is a real drag and I don't want that for you!

Rey constantly checked over her shoulder as she skulked through the base, expecting to feel Ren’s glare on her back with every second that passed. He was going to be furious. She was still looking over her shoulder when she rounded the corner and came face to face with Finn, Han, and Chewbacca.

Rey was so startled that she felt like she’d been hit with a blaster bolt. Seeing them felt somehow unreal, like a vision from a dream suddenly appearing in the waking world. Had this been her life before today? These were her friends, and yet she felt like she was a completely different person since she’d last seen them.

She was stronger and more complicated, and the way Finn was looking at her sent warmth to her heart. But seeing him only highlighted the difference between seeing a friend, a human male at that, and the blinding heat that had somehow sprouted between her and Kylo Ren. She couldn’t afford to think about this.

Finn was ecstatic to see her, a stunned warmth spreading into his eyes. Of course, she remembered, when Finn had last seen her she’d been missing from battle, maybe even dead. He’d probably had no idea what happened to her.

“Rey,” Han said, his warm eyes meeting hers with a look so tender it made her want to cry. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, and Finn reached for her hand, saying, “What happened to you? Did he hurt you?” She supposed he was imaging the Kylo Ren who had once been his master, who had committed acts of cruelty so vile that it had turned Finn against his own programming. She had indeed met that man. She’d also met the other one.

But the question hit a little too close to home. She couldn’t talk about him yet. Not now, when there was so much at stake and her heart felt like it was about to crack in half. Was it possible for that to happen? Were feelings supposed to be this…intense? The only intense feelings she’d ever had were related to food or grief. This was another thing entirely.

“Finn, what are you doing here?” she said instead of answering his question. Han was looking around, and Rey wondered if he could sense his son the way that she could.

“We came back for you,” he said excitedly, and Rey thought of Ren’s prediction.

_“Finn is here for you more than anything else.”_

_“He’ll try to save you, your Finn. Then I’ll get him, too.”_

She shook her head slightly, trying to knock Ren’s words out of her head.

Chewie spoke in his familiar warbling voice. “ _It was Finn’s plan_.”

Finn’s head whipped around. “What did he say?”

Rey’s eyes went very wide. “That it was your idea.”

She was so tired. She was so tired and hurting and Finn had come back for her. He was the first person to have ever come back for her. The magnitude of that love washed over her like a balm and Rey pulled Finn into her arms, needing to feel someone solid and warm and so safe. His arm wrapped around her back, firm and steady as she whispered, “Thank you.”

“How did you get away?” he murmured, his voice warm against her ear as he held her.

“I can’t explain it, and you wouldn’t believe it,” Rey said, almost laughing when she realized it was the most honest thing she’s said in days. Her laughed died in her throat when she felt a stirring in her chest.

Kylo Ren was awake.

\--

“They’re in trouble, we can’t leave,” Han said as he looked at the pummeling the x-wings were on the receiving end of as they stood outside the oscillator base. It was bitterly cold outside and she had no jacket, but she gulped in the cold air like it could purify her insides and remove the burn of her emotions.

“My friend has a bag of explosives. Let’s use them.”

Rey swallowed. Hard. There were a few reasons she didn’t want to run back inside, and all of them had to do with Ren. When he’d come around, she felt his groggy surprise at finding himself on the floor, and then, slowly, a rage building in his chest that had everything to do with her.

 _Rey, this isn’t over yet,_ she heard him think at her, and she’d let go of Finn as a shudder of fear and anticipation washed over her. Apparently they could know share thoughts. This was going to be a problem, Rey knew.

 _Don’t do anything stupid,_ she begged him, somehow knowing that it wouldn’t do any good.

_You shouldn’t be with them, Rey. They’re murderers and thieves. They will lead you astray._

_Well, I’m a scavenger, so I’m in good company._

She’d shut the connection.

Han and Chewie rushed off to load the charges and Rey bit down on her lip as Finn took her hand and moved to send recon data to the Rebel base from the ground. It was all she could do not to cry out when she looked up saw the sun going slowly out. In the desert, there was only ever the sun. To see a world without one felt like the worst kind of hell.

Ren had done this.

Finn’s jacket around her shoulders filled her mouth with the scent of sweat and leather, and she ran from the sight back inside the base.

\--

Ren felt her the minute she entered the oscillator cavern, of course. He could feel her eyes staring down at him as he faced Han on the walkway over the cooling bay, a freezing breeze rushing against his exposed face. He could sense every hair on her skin as she watched him with desperation raging in her chest.

She wanted him to run but she refused to call out to him. Every beat of her heart shouted at him _flee flee flee_.

He felt her ragged breathing, the fear that was bubbling in her chest like boiling water, and the warmth leftover from the jacket that someone else had draped across her shoulders. He remembered again that Rey was the sort of person who inspired love.

“Your son is gone,” he said to father, and he believed his own words, even then.

“Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants he’ll crush you. You know it’s true.”

Ren took half a step away from him, resisting the knowledge of something he already knew to be true, had already accepted long ago. Ren valued utility. He didn’t need to hear this from Han, but it was different coming from his lips. The advice felt fatherly.

“It’s too late,” Ren said simply, because it was simple. More simple than almost anything else in his life.

“Leave here with me. Come home. We miss you,” Han said, his voice warming a fraction of a degree. Ren remembered how Han had seemed to Rey, his face a collection of worn lines and dry mirth. Rey was a part of Han’s ‘we’ and not his own.

Succumbing, Ren decided to try the novelty of being honest with his father. “I’m being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain. I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?” He couldn’t bring his voice above a quiet, controlled murmur, but he knew that Rey could hear him. It was hard for him to tell who exactly he was speaking to.

Speaking in double speak was a tired trick, but there was no way Ren could tell his father the truth of his torment, the war raging inside of him that pitted his feelings against his mind, his duty against his desire. And he resolutely didn’t look up at Rey, whose thoughts he could feel like a second heartbeat in his head.

 _No, no, no, no._ She knew what he was going to do, of course, because they were the same. The thought gave him no small measure of satisfaction as his blade pushed through Han’s wiry frame. Rey’s scream was a distant echo, and Ren felt a coldness spreading down his cheek. His eyes were watering. _Ah, grief_.

Ren withdrew his blade from the body of his father with a grunt of exertion and watched as if from a great distance as Han reached out and placed his hand gingerly against Ren’s face and fell stiffly off the bridge. Ren imagined Han landing in a vast ocean with seagulls above it, his body floating gently to the ocean floor where he rested, as if sleeping.

\--

In the seconds after Ren killed Han, Rey fought off the urge to run outside and wretch in the snow. She succeeded only because she couldn’t afford to, not when he was still down there, watching her like he wanted to devour her with those coal black eyes of his. All of everything that had passed between them seemed tarnished and hollow in the face of all this betrayal. Because Rey knew that what Ren had done was partly- _oh gods-_ because of her.

It wasn’t her fault, but their encounters had galvanized him, made him at risk to either the light or the dark, and she had failed to bring him to the light. Now he was hurling himself into the dark side again, a black comet whose rage he turned from his father to her. His face was as red as his saber as he glared up at the two of them, and his expression as he focused in on her face hardened into a desperate, hungry mask that needed no words to express its feelings through their bond.

He was livid. He had done this because of her. He had to do it. She heard him in her head and she grabbed Finn’s hand and pulled, fleeing. There was nothing for it anymore. He would come for her next.

Finn struggled after her for a moment, stumbling half blind with the horror until he finally found his footing and kept pace with her as they fled the exploding base into the forest beyond. She had to run. The planet was destroying itself, Ren had killed Han, and Ren was coming for her. She was injured and freezing. There was technically no reason to stay.

It was inside that forest that they met him again, of course. He seemed to have a knack for tracking her down. He was maskless, which was worse, she thought, his face a contorted version of the man she knew. He felt deranged, like something in him had come unhinged. He was standing in front of them, cloak all billowy around him as the snow fell. His lightsaber was a red gash in the air.

His eyes found hers and his breath heaved, injured still from Chewie’s blaster bolt. She saw the blood dripping from his side and felt a perverse twinge of satisfaction as her hatred for him boiled in her breast and gave her strength, which, of course, he would probably have approved of if he could have felt it.

The link between them was firmly sealed shut. Neither wanted to reach out to the other anymore, not now when neither of them could afford the weakness of their bizarre attraction. The limbo was over; this was work. Dimly, she noticed Finn shifting next to her, practically jumping at the bit for a chance to lunge at his former master, but when Ren spoke it was only to Rey.

“We’re not done yet!” he shouted, his eyes taunting her.

_What did you think was going to happen?_

“You’re a monster!” she screamed, hoping it bit into him like a knife. She felt her face betray the grief she felt that made her savage, wild.

He ignored it. “It’s just us now. Han Solo can’t save you,” he sneered. She grit her teeth at the jab. He used her affection against her, a low-blow for a low-blow. Maybe they deserved each other.

\--

Ren seethed in the snow, the heat radiating from his body and his open wound sending him into what felt like a madness coupled with a blinding need to fight. Fight her, specifically. It would probably always be her, specifically, after this. She arrived in the clearing exactly where he knew she would. She was untrained, after all, and so predictable. He made no attempt to hide himself and she waltzed right into him with that blasted stormtrooper, and she had the audacity to stand there with an accusation in her eyes.

She reached out to him with her mind one last time and he heard her murmur one word into his head right before he threw her against a tree as hard as he could without killing her outright.

_Please-_

She hit the tree with a wooden crunch and her body fell limply to the ground, as small and helpless as it ever was when unconscious. It hadn’t been nearly as satisfying as he’d anticipated. It was a pity that he knew so much about what unconscious Rey was like. It would make this harder for him.

He watched with detached interest as the stormtrooper ran over to her prone body, shaking her as he called her name again and again. She just lay there, being handled by that stormtrooper, which infuriated him.

Impatient, Ren waited expectantly for Rey to get up, rub her head, blink a few times and then curse him. Maybe shake a tiny fist at him and lash out. Then, they would have their fight and he would win, she would yield, and all this would be over. Order would be restored.

But she didn’t move.

How dare she be weak now that they had just begun to fight each other in earnest? Ren advanced, waiting for her to rise so they could finally _finally_ fight as equals. She had promised him that. But she didn’t move. Then again, this was the way with them, a back and forth battle that seemed to always end with one rendering the other unconscious.

Unconscious, yes, but never _dead_.

Ren felt suddenly very cold. He screamed at her, hurling a word at her that he knew would prick her ears up. “Traitor!” he roared, and the stormtrooper sat up, thinking the blow had been meant for him.

FN-2187 took Rey’s lightsaber from her hand, which made him, if possible, more murderously angry than before. This unworthy’s theft of her- _his_ \- property, standing over her like he had any right to stand by her side and fight him with his grandfather’s saber, filled him with an absurd, destructive rage.

“That lightsaber, it belongs to me,” he commanded, extending a hand in a single warning that he wouldn’t repeat.

The stormtrooper flicked it on, glaring at Ren. “Come get it.

Ren didn’t need to be asked twice.

They fought savagely. Ren was wounded but stronger than this untrained trooper turned Rebel, and he only bothered to make him scream because Rey still hadn’t woken up by the time the fight was over. It would take something more than blows to draw her from her slumber, apparently. A further vexation.

So he brushed the stormtrooper’s shoulder with the side vent of his saber just enough to hurt like hell, and his screams roused Rey from wherever she’d been hiding. She looked disoriented, blinking, trying to place the sound. But she didn’t get up.

Only when he was sure she was watching did he scrape the stormtrooper up the back with his saber and hurl her weapon out of his unworthy hands. Ren wanted her as angry as possible, and she cared about the stormtrooper enough to get up for him.

It worked.

\--

Rey rose to her feet in the shadow of Finn’s total silence on the ground. There was no time to go to him now, not the way Ren was looking at her. He reached his hand out for her saber, trying to Force it to him, but Rey realized that it wasn’t his to summon. That saber was _hers_ , damn it.

She extended and hand and it flew into her grip, a welcome friend inside an understanding grasp. It felt so right to hold it and slip into a basic fighter’s stance. It felt so natural to face him with her saber poised next to her ear. Finally.

When she finally made a move at Kylo Ren, it was to stab his grandfather’s saber straight at his traitorous heart. She swore she saw him smile.


	6. Pull

They fought viciously. Irritatingly, Ren was on the advance and she was fighting backwards, winding her way through a ravine that reminded her unpleasantly of their fight on Takodana. Ren seemed to appreciate the symmetry by the way he drove her up the side of one ravine wall the way he’d done during their first fight.

In many ways, the fight reminded Rey of her time strapped into the interrogation chair. Ren was more powerful, driving her back as he pressed her to her limits, but she could still fight him off in a way that seemed to infuriate him. Tit for tat.

They didn’t speak to each other this time. There was no sizzling chemistry, no looming sense of the impossibility of the two of them, just two people fighting because they were desperate. That was probably the way of things, but it tasted bitter in her mouth.

Fighting with a saber was surprisingly natural to Rey. Her hands seemed to understand the balance of the weapon in a way that made it easy for her to slash, stab, parry, and strike. The weapon was heavy but moved lightly in her hands, and she found herself carrying her techniques from fighting with her staff over to her saber strikes.

She slashed her first parry with it and nearly paused to appreciate the sheer power of the thing. Ren fought like a hungry animal, throwing his weight into his saber blows with an intensity that hurt to watch. He struck to disable, to wound, and he continually beat against his injuries to motivate himself.

They cleared the ravine as the planet began to disintegrate in earnest, and Rey wondered if they would die here, fighting like this without any real aim on either side. Weren’t they both pawns, just trying to survive? Blue and red sabers flashed through the night and Ren’s parries were vicious, slightly mad in feeling as Rey countered with her own blows. He went for her hand and she slashed a tree in half in front of his face. Bastard.

Eventually, her fighting turned into a sprint with the occasional offensive strike as Ren pushed her back through the woods, his face ablaze with whatever contortion was operating in his chest. She didn’t expect lightsaber fights to hurt, but each blow of blade on blade sent a tremendous thud of pain through her wrists and arms. In many ways, she would have been more comfortable with a blaster or her old staff from Jakku.

In other ways, she was born for this.

\--

It was a tremendous satisfaction to the monster in Ren’s chest that Rey was losing. For once in the past 36 hours, something was going according to plan, and he drove Rey back through the woods, angling their fight around to push her back to the base, back in the direction of his ship, where he could think of several rooms with satisfactory doors on his command ship that he could lock her behind.

From there, off to an Outer Rim planet where he could train her in peace and violence at his leisure. Among other things, if she was as willing as she had been in the interrogation room.

That was the plan until the unnatural rift in the surface of the planet had him driving her against a huge void in the earth that definitely had not been there a minute ago. The geographical inconvenience was enough to drag him out of his murderous rage and restore his power of coherent thought.

“You need a teacher. I can show you the ways of the Force,” he shouted, pressing the square of their lightsabers to drive her just slightly back. He pressed at her mind, and as in this battle, she gave ground to him. He sensed her again, tasted the fear and awe that she was feeling. She thought he had gone mad. It gave him strength.

_Do or die, Rey._

“The Force?” she said, as if it had only just occurred to her what exactly it was that she was _doing_ when she fought him. She closed her eyes, meditating, and Ren found himself scrabbling at her mind, trying to grab onto something and hold her. He didn’t want to knock her out this time, he wanted to break her.

But there was nothing to hold. Rey was not there, but soaring, flying far away from him. She didn’t return to her body again until it was all over, Ren on the ground, a gash she’d given him splitting his face up one side as she towered over him. They breathed heavily as they each considered the turn their fight had taken.

She looked different, strong and angry. She looked, he thought, not unlike a Sith. Dimly, he realized that perhaps this loss would still work to his own end, although as the pain of his body began to overwhelm his self-control, it was hard to remember what it was he actually wanted.

She looked so sad. Ren was just on the verge of blacking out when the rift in the earth tore her from him in what felt like an act of the Maker itself. She was suddenly a flickering patch of blue and tan across a chasm that was too far away from where he was to throw himself into.

In the distance, he saw a blast of white light throw her into dramatic shadow. For a second, he thought it was heaven come to meet them. Then, nothing.

\--

Rey sprinted back to the clearing and grabbed Finn, staggering with Chewie onto the _Falcon_ as the sound of Kylo Ren’s pain screamed at her through their connection. He wasn’t speaking coherent thoughts, just a stream of half-mad noise that hurt her head. Quite suddenly, it cut off, like a holo that had run out of power mid-broadcast. He was going to die there.

Rey leaned on the entry wall of the _Falcon_ and groaned loudly as Chewbacca called to her to get her ass to the cockpit before they all died. She made a dash for the cockpit, put the comm unit on, and shouted over the roar of the collapsing planet to bank low and turn around.

Chewie demanded to know if she was crazy, but she just shook her head. “We can’t leave him. Think of the Rebellion!” Chewie grunted. As the ship took off she ran to the boarding ramp and opened it, throwing her weight onto the manual release switch.

They were low enough to the ground still that the _Falcon_ hadn’t even withdrawn the landing gear, and she watched the landscape underneath them shake and shatter as they drew nearer to the dark, misshapen scrap of black that was Kylo Ren. He wasn’t moving.

As the ramp lowered, Rey crawled down the metal gangway as they hovered over Ren’s limp body. The wind and noise tore at her hair and face and she braced herself, clinging to the edge to keep herself from falling. The ground around him was dangerously unsteady, and in the distance, Rey saw the bright light of an incoming transport ship. First Order troops come to rescue their prince, no doubt.

Adrenaline gave Rey a surge of strength as she reached under his arms and yanked, screaming at him to _wake up, damn it_ , through their connection. His eyelids fluttered as she yanked him up and onto the ramp, her arms screaming under his weight.

With a last yank they were on the ramp, and Rey slammed on the remote shut button as Chewie engaged thrusters and the ground fell away. Once the door was shut and they were safely slumped against the _Falcon’s_ walls, Ren still unconscious in her arms, Rey ran from his side back to the cockpit. They assembled with the remaining fighters and flew off as Star Killer Base exploded underneath them.

With a little pang, she heard the victorious Rebellion flyers on the other end of the line give wild cheers of triumph as they accelerated and jumped into lightspeed.

\--

Rey nearly sprinted off the ship when it landed, her feet touching the dry ground of the resistance base at the same moment she saw the crowd of people rushing toward the ship to receive them. She nearly groaned out loud.

She loaded Finn onto the medical shuttle with the help of the med team, and she almost burst into tears when she heard the medic announce Finn’s continued heartbeat. It was a relief to her to see him off in capable hands, and a weight lifted from her shoulder. She hadn’t realized how much she loved Finn until she faced the thought of losing him. But he was okay, he would live.

The other weight on her shoulders was Ren, who was still unconscious where she’d left him in the _Falcon’s_ med bay, his slashed face lolling against the wall. Chewbacca had walked past him, ignoring him as he exited the ship.

Rey was pretty sure that, when it came to Chewbacca, he could either ignore Ren or rip his arms from his sockets, so she understood his reaction. In all fairness, Rey thought it was a testament to what self-control the Wookie possessed. She sighed when she realized that Ren was probably her responsibility now.

She felt Leia’s eyes on her from across the base, and with a sense of dread blooming in her belly Rey met her gaze. She let out a long breath and the two women sized each other up. Rey had no doubt that Leia knew her son was onboard the ship. Finally, the general closed the distance between them and pulled Rey into a firm hug.

Into her ear, Leia murmured, “Thank you.” Her voice was shaking.

Rey wrapped her arms around Leia and received the first motherly embrace she could ever remember. It was warm and firm, and just as nice as Rey had always imagined. But her eyes threatened to spill bitter tears when Rey muttered, “I failed you.”

Han was dead. Rey had failed to bring Ren to the light in time and Leia’s husband was gone. Now her traitor of a son was back in the heart of Rebel territory, slashed half to death by Rey’s own hand.

Leia pulled away and held Rey at arm’s length, a look of determined affection on her wise face. “No, Rey. You’ve given me a tremendous gift. You couldn’t have done better.”

That was probably true, but it wasn’t much comfort. Rey shook her head and Leia said, “Go rest. I’ll see to Ben. Don’t tell anyone yet.”

She signaled for a few officers to follow her on board the ship and she trotted briskly off. Rey, fearing what Ren could do if he woke up to the sight of Rebellion army commanders and his mother looming over him, followed behind them to offer assistance in subduing him.

She needn’t have bothered. Ren, wounded and bleeding all over the med bay, was completely unconscious for the entire process of strapping him onto a stretcher and ushering him off for medical attention.

Rey watched him in silent contemplation. She felt numb, looking at the brutal gash on his face and the blood seeping out of him like air from a leaking compressor valve. He looked so terribly human, so fragile. It made it hard to be furious at him when he was so still and pale on the stretcher.

She remembered with satisfaction that he’d left his mask on Starkiller Base. He would hate that. She followed the stretcher all the way to the med bay and watched as they ripped open those black robes and exposed the red and black mess of wounds, already bruising and broken. She grit her teeth when she realized the extent of his damages, half of which were probably self-inflicted. She could also see older scars that criss-crossed across his palms and chest.

The First Order could have given him medical care that would remove his new scars, especially on his face, but the Rebels had no such facilities. It would heal ugly. Rey looked down at her own wounds, mostly saber burns that still throbbed painfully. A medic gave her a sidelong glance as she fingered the worst burn, a long saber mark across her shoulder, but she shook her head, spreading her hand protectively across it.

She didn’t mind the mark. When it throbbed, it anchored her to the present and gave her something to focus on. It would be something to show Ren when he woke up, assuming he made it at all. As the medics began to strip him of the plain black flight suit pants he wore under his mantle, Rey turned sharply away. She was aware of Leia’s eyes on her back as she stalked out of the room.

\--

Strangely, it was Poe who found her as she hammered on the underside of the _Falcon_ , prying at one of the exterior panels that protected the shield’s forward generator. It had taken a beating, and it would need an acid bath to get the tree sap and wood splinters out of it. Why Han had been flying that low was beyond her, and she didn’t want to as Chewie. It would be a cosmetic fix, sure, but Rey looked forward to the task. It was mindless, and she couldn’t bear to go to the celebration that was raging in the main meeting room of the Rebel base.

Poe knocked his hand against one of the landing gear posts, as if seeking permission. Removing the socket wrench from her mouth, Rey turned. Poe was leaning casually against the back left wheel, giving her a warm smile with his hands in his pockets. She didn’t recognize him, but there was no doubt in her mind who he was.

“You’re Poe, aren’t you?” Rey said, smiling shyly. “Finn talked about you.”

“And you’re Rey. I’ve heard a lot about you too. Great flying there, Ace,” he said. He had a warm, springy voice. Rey thought that it was exactly the voice a daring Rebel pilot should have. Everything about him screamed confidence, and Rey felt suddenly shy.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re not much for dancing?” He said with a little laugh as his eyes flicked over her grease stained outfit and work belt.

She frowned, considering herself. She hadn’t washed yet, and there was still blood on her tunic and hair. She really needed to sleep or to eat or to shower or…Ren’s face flashed before her eyes and Rey grit her teeth for the eighth time that day.

“No,” Rey snapped. “I don’t know how.”

Poe’s eyes widened slightly at her obvious change of demeanor. “It’s not that great,” he said quickly. “Look, I’ve been where you are. You just had your first battle. I don't know what happened to you exactly, but I’m pretty sure you’re in no shape to be operating heavy machinery.”

She had to laugh at that, because of course, he was probably right. The wrench in her hand was shaking and it had taken her three tries to center it and yank hard enough to get any tread. She was useless as a mechanic.

“Where are you sleeping?” he asked her when she didn’t reply.

“The _Falcon_ ,” Rey said with a shrug. Where else would she sleep?

Poe shook his head. “No, you need to be with other people right now.”

Rey took a step backwards, dread spreading through her. “I want to be alone.”

Poe shrugged back, unfazed. “Okay, well come take a shower in the barracks and send a cleaning crew out to do this for you tomorrow. You’ve got bigger bantha to hunt starting tomorrow, and you’ll need your strength.”

Rey gripped her wrench in her shaking hand, staring at the ground. Poe moved closer as Rey focused on not bursting into tears. Gently, he pried the wrench from her hand and set it on the ground, his eyes watching her like she was a cat who might scratch him.

He hesitated for a moment when she didn’t react, but placed his hand gingerly on her back and guided her forward, back toward the base and the warm water that waited for her. She allowed herself to be guided because Poe felt like a friend.

A friend. That was three friends that she had now.

Halfway to the door to the hangar, Rey finally burst into tears against Poe’s shoulders. He seemed startled by this display of emotion, but he wrapped his arms around her and let her sob for an agonizing minute into his shoulder as the stress of the past two days drained from her. It wasn’t the cathartic kind of crying; it was the end of the rope type of tears that burned coming out, the kind that hurt.

Gathering herself, Rey stopped her tears to a slow trickle and disentangled herself from Poe’s grasp, offering him a rueful smile.

“Sorry, bad day,” she said, half laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Above them, the planet’s moons twinkled down on them like mirages, and Poe’s smile was as warm and steady as hers was weak and pained. He gave her a friendly pat on the back as she wiped her eyes.

“Don’t worry, you’re probably going to have worse.” How he managed to make a sentence as grim as that seem somehow blasé and funny was beyond her, but it did the trick and her spirits rose.

Yes, Poe Dameron would be her third ever friend, along with Finn and her would-be Sith lord lover. Perfect.

“Yeah,” she said, feeling an unconscious Kylo Ren roll over in his hospital bed. “You’re probably right.”

\--

Poe had been right about the food and the shower. She inhaled a bowl of some soup like stuff as Poe leaned against the cantine’s walls in bemused wonder, and the boost to her blood sugar buoyed her spirits.

“You eat like an animal,” he chuckled. “Finn wasn’t kidding.”

\--

The shower was the most amazing thing Rey had ever experienced. When she had bathed on Jakku it had been with a scratchy rag soaked in as little water as was necessary to moisten the sand and dirt off her skin. An abrasive rubbing down served the double purpose of exfoliating her peeling skin sunburns and scraping off the majority of her dirt. But she had never felt truly clean, nor needed to. What was the point of cleaning yourself well when within an hour you’d be as sandlogged and scratchy as you were before?

But when she stripped off her tunic and leggings, exposing her flesh to the air of a foreign planet for the first time, it felt like being reborn. Water from a spigot poured down on her like a monsoon, and the sensation of that much moisture over her skin took her breath away.

She imagined the soap washing away the dirt collected from years of scavenging and hard living, and as she ran her hands across her own skin she realized for the first time that she would never have to go back to Jakku again.

Thinking of the future inevitably led to thoughts of Ren. She had felt him stir and go back under, and it unsettled her.

The vision of the two of them together, stronger as a team and sharing a bed together flitted before her eyes again. Unbidden, she imagine him in the shower here with her, that look of need filling his face as he kissed her hard against the warm steel of the walls.

With a little twist, she turned the water off and stood naked in the metal showers, alone and clean and lonely. And freezing. The frigid air did its work and she was soon too cold to have erotic thoughts about Kylo Ren anymore, which was the only reason she could fathom to ever stop showering. The feeling of the freezing cold air stealing the moisture back from her body sent her running for her towel.

Just another wonder to absorb without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VEERING OFF FROM THE ESTABLISHED CANON. BOLDLY GOING. NOT GIVING A FRICK. stay tuned.


	7. Ties

Poe was gone when she emerged from the shower. Maybe he had gone back to the party, but she slipped back into a clean flight suit she found in the laundered clothes locker next to the showers. Gently, she folded her tunic and leggings from Jakku, vowing to wash them herself one of these days.

Someone knocked at the locker room door, and Rey called for Poe to enter. He let out a low whistle when he saw her. Tapping a finger against his lips in mock contemplation, he said, “You know, you’re not half as tan as I thought you were when you’re not covered in dirt and blood.”

She gave him a dry smile. “I’ll never be as stylish as you, Poe.”

He laughed. “Well, keep trying. Are you ready to go to the party?”

A strumming feeling filled Rey’s chest as she felt Ren begin to struggle into consciousness. Filled with fear, Rey leaned heavily against one of the metal lockers lining the side of the wall as his rage flared up like a pilot light in her chest.

It daunted her. She wasn’t ready to face him yet.

_Rey, what did you do?_ He groaned.

“Hey, you okay?” Poe said, watching her degenerate for the second time that evening. He was going to think she was mad after all this.

“I’m fine,” Rey said, clenching a fist. “I just don’t feel very well.”

“Oh, maybe you’re having a little of that interstellar flu that’s been going around. We could go to the med bay and get you some anti-nausea pills.”

_Yes, come to me in the med bay, and by all means bring your new friend the Resistance pilot_ , Ren drawled in her head as he tried to sit up. The wound on his side shot with pain.

“No, it’s fine, I just need to get back to my ship,” Rey stammered. “You go along, I’ll just see myself back.”

He eyed her skeptically but seemed to decide it wasn’t worth fighting her on it.

“You’re an odd one, Rey,” he said, not unkindly. She could only nod.

-

She went to the med bay anyway, of course, because she couldn’t help it. He wasn’t supposed to be conscious right now, and part of her wanted to check that he hadn’t maimed himself in his continuing quest to destroy his own body.

The other part just wanted to see him, to check that the past day had actually happened and she had really dueled with him as the world exploded around them. It felt like a fever dream, and yet here she was, her fingers hovering over the keypad access port to Ren’s med cell. She took a deep breath.

He was sitting up when she entered, his bare feet touching the floor. He was shirtless, and half his chest was bandaged. The scar across his face was bandaged also, and she could only see one of his eyes. He was just sitting there, strangely disempowered and human without his black robes and mask.

She drew in a breath at the extent of his bandaging and the red stains that were seeping through them, fresh and painful. The low light threw him into dramatic shadow, and his cheeks looked sunken and hollow.

“Always a pleasure to see you,” Ren said dryly. He didn’t _seem_ angry, but she felt him simmering beneath the surface. He was keeping himself well in check, which was almost more unnerving than if she’d come in to find him raving. She wondered if it was the pain that limited him.

“Don’t try anything, Ren, it will only make things worse for you,” she warned.

He held up his hands as if in surrender, a dark chuckle slipping through his lips as they both thought of how much damage he could do even without a weapon.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m in reconnaissance mode at the moment.”

Rey snorted. “Locked into a med pod, half dead with saber wounds and shrapnel? Not likely.”

“You underestimate me.”

“Please,” Rey hissed, rolling her eyes. “I’ve been where you are now. The only difference is that you’re not tied to a torture chair.”

“Are you going to do anything about that, by the way? You know I can get out of here if I set my mind to it,” he said casually.

“I don’t think you will, with both your mother and me around to watch you and the entire Rebel fleet ready to hunt you down.”

Rey had a pretty realistic idea of the med pod’s ability to hold the Knight of Ren, but she was fairly certain that he wouldn’t be able to flat out escape without going through her. She would feel it. People would see. Privately, she was also fairly sure that he wouldn’t want to leave the cell if it meant facing his mother.

He sat up. “Leia is here?”

Ren nodded grimly. His mouth twisted slightly.

“Your timing really could have been better, you know,” he sighed. His anger cooled.

“Yes, well, forgive me if I’m not really in the business of accommodating you right now,” Rey snapped, real anger behind her voice.

“I would ask you if you were here to kill me for my sins, but given that you already had the chance and you didn’t, I’m going to guess that you’re here for something else.”

“You called me, remember?” Rey muttered, still leaning against the far wall. She was trying to emulate the casual ease that Poe seemed to exude. It made him seem invincible.

“Yes, but _I’m_ not mad,” he said petulantly.

“You were before,” Rey countered, remembering the maddening fury he’d felt when they fought on Starkiller Base.

He looked a little ashamed. “Don’t read too far into that. The anger was a tool, nothing more.”

“Well, you’ll have to forgive me for not wielding my anger like a weapon to hurt people I care about, Ren, because I’m not like you. I can’t so easily forget what is inconvenient to me.”

“You care about me,” Ren murmured, his eyes flashing into hers.

“You know I do. But I wish I didn’t.”

“Then why are you here?” He growled, obviously annoyed.

That stopped her short, and she clenched her nails into her palms, willing herself not to speak or shout or stamp her foot or throw herself on him.

“I don’t know,” she finally ground out as Ren continued to stare expectantly at her.

He continued, “For that matter, why did you save me at all? I can feel your anger, Rey. You were angry enough to leave me but you didn’t.” He sounded genuinely curious.

She refused to be led to a conclusion. “I told you, I’m not like you.”

“That’s not true. We’re the same, which is why you couldn’t leave me there to die. You didn’t want to be without me.”

“It doesn’t matter, because I doubt either of us will stay here for much longer. I haven’t spoken with Leia yet, but I’m sure you’ll be up for a trial for the destruction of the Hosnian System. Whatever is left of the Republic will no doubt want justice.”

“That would be ill advised. The First Order will be looking for an excuse to reduce what is left of their weak and corrupt alliance. Executing me will likely give them exactly what they want, and anyway, they’d never let that happen.”

Rey was suddenly sick of his arrogance. With no preamble, she asked, “Why did you do it? Why did you kill Han?”

He thought for a moment, resting one elbow on his knee. He was seated at the very edge of his cot, and she noticed that she could see his bare feet. It was so human that it surprised her. He said, “Because I was trying to pick sides, once and for all.”

Rey exhaled. “But why did you pick _that_ side? You’re making this impossible,” Rey snapped, pointing at their bodies. He reached out an intercepted her hand, taking it in his own and stroking it gently while his eyes held onto hers. She didn’t react in any way until he lifted her hand palm up to his lips and kissed it. So soft, that kiss. So tender.

“I’ve never been free,” he whispered, his mouth moving against his palm. “And neither have you. Not even now. You need to be powerful to have freedom, Rey.”

She knew that she should pull her hand away, but as he kissed it again, his mouth a whisper of a caress against the sensitive skin, she found herself leaning in towards his seated, bandaged body. “Quit speaking in riddles,” she murmured, reaching a hand out to twine into his hair. It seemed to move almost without her realizing.

“Can you leave, Rey? Would they let you leave?” He lifted his face from her hand but didn’t let it go. His eyes drifted towards the locked door and the rest of the base and Rey tightened her fingers around a lock of his black hair.

“You’re trying to manipulate me,” Rey accused, a tremor to her voice that betrayed how unsettling she found his words. She _was_ free.

He pressed another kiss against the vulnerable skin above the veins on her wrist, his thumb rubbing her forearm in a maddeningly slow arc that sent sparks shooting up her arms.

“See for yourself,” he offered. Rey inserted herself into his brain for the first time since Starkiller Base’s explosion and sifted, sensing his feelings. If he was lying to her, he was hiding it masterfully. But then again, he was a master at many things.

“I can’t lie to you, Rey,” he breathed, his breath fanning across her hand, and he gave her wrist a gentle tug, pulling her down and toward him so that she was on her kneeds in front of him, her eyes level with his good one. He held her wrist loosely between his legs as he stared her down.

“Forgive me?” he murmured.

She shook her head. “You aren’t sorry.”

“I could be,” he mused, twining his fingers with hers.

“Ren, I have to leave. I have to find Luke. We can’t do this again, it can’t be like on-”

He pressed his mouth to hers softly, the way an artist might have pressed an inked stamp against fine paper. With a little jolt, she realized that comparison had come from Ren’s thoughts because she’d never seen anyone make paper crafts before in her life. It had flown from his mind into hers almost without her noticing.

The lines between them blurred further as she pressed herself up and against him, running her hand against the unhurt side of his naked chest. When she dug her fingernails into the skin of his lower back, he groaned in pain and Rey pulled away from him.

“Grow up,” she sighed, extricating herself from his embrace. His eyes, fathomless, followed her as she rose to her feet and left, locking the door behind her.

\--

That night, Rey slept in the barracks in the bunk across from Poe’s. It wasn’t that she wanted company, in fact, she deliberately went to bed down before the revelers would come in for the evening. It was just that she had an uneasy feeling about sleeping by herself in the Falcon.

She wanted to be on the base, near to Ren in case he either escaped or stayed put. If he escaped, she would have to stop him. If he didn’t escape, she didn’t want to be far away in case he tried to. Then there was the small matter of her restlessness, which roared through her, sending prickles against her skin. The places on her wrist where he’d kissed burned.

Now that he was awake and conscious, Rey felt the near constant prickling of Ren’s unease and annoyance at being cooped up. He hadn’t destroyed anything yet, but Rey knew it was probably a matter of time until one of his staggering acts of insensible destruction woke her from sleep or made her crash the Falcon in fright.

She didn’t fancy waking up to that adrenaline rush alone. So, even though it was strange to be sleeping in such a big room with so many other bodies, Rey eventually managed to doze fitfully on the Rebellion standard issue mattresses, rolling and tossing as she cycled through an unsettling combination of her own dreams and Ren’s.

A feeling of anxiety and desire woke her from her sleep late that night, and, still half-unconscious, Rey peered up at the shadowy figure of a man standing next to her bunk. It was Poe, returning from the party, she assumed. Her addled brain objected to that somehow, but it didn’t seem to matter. She was so tired it felt like her body was made of sand.

“S’okay?” she mumbled, half asleep. But Poe didn’t say anything. She closed her eyes, ultimately not caring if it was okay or not. She dozed back into her dream, the sensation of water running across her back filling her mind.

On the bunk across from her, Poe Dameron continued to sleep deeply, having drunk a few too many glasses of fine Corellian brandy at the celebration that evening with Snap and the other pilots.

Ren padded softly back the way he’d come in.

\--

“He won’t see me,” Leia sighed as Rey shifted in the conference table chair. Around her the Rebel high council sat in full gear, eager to hear how the first negotiation talk had gone over. But, of course, it hadn’t gone over at all. Ren had overridden the interior controls and refused to let the door open.

“With respect, general,” said Major Ematt, his white hair glinting in the low light. “You hardly need to ask his permission to enter. We have blast technicians.”

Leia nodded. “Yes, that’s true, but I hardly favor the path of most resistance in this instance.”

Rey took a large drink from her mug, still sleepy from her restless night. She’d had bizarre dreams. He’d been calling to her, but even in her sleep she’d pushed him away. Something small and wounded inside her would throb every time she thought of him and it was painful to remember his presence on the base.

But she hadn’t been back to see him that morning and had no intention of going back while he was clearly so unrepentant. Never mind the fact that Ren’s patricide had apparently done nothing to stop the bond she felt to him and the desire that he seemed to churn up in her without even trying.

Leia turned her gaze to Rey, and something in her expression made her set her mug down and mentally brace herself for whatever fresh hell she was about to encounter. “He’ll only speak to you,” Leia said.

Rey saw Poe’s eyes widen across the table and they exchanged looks.

“But I have to go get Luke,” Rey protested. “The _Falcon_ is ready to go.”

“As much as I would like to see Luke back, I can hardly prioritize that over the hostage situation we have here.” Leia looked tired. “I want my son back, but I can’t do that if I don’t have his willing cooperation. I’m prepared to negotiate.”

There was a silence as that sunk in. Leia had always been a hardliner. She had alienated half the New Republic by protesting the demilitarization of the Republic Starfleet, and the Resistance only existed because many senators who privately agreed with Leia were willing to support them under the table.

But here, Leia was willing to negotiate with her terrorist son when she held nearly all the cards. Love truly made you blind.

“What does he want?” Rey asked.

“He won't see me until he’s had a talk with you,” Leia sighed. “That’s all I know.”

“With respect, why does he take an interest in you, Rey?” Ematt said, his eyes narrowing slightly in contemplation.

Rey looked down at her hands, but she spoke the truth. “He wants to train me. We have a mutual understanding of each other through the Force, and I think he wants to explore that.”

Poe, his voice rising in alarm, asked, “What the hell does that mean, Rey?”

She could only shake her head. “I don't know, exactly, but I don't want to speak to him, General. He’s dangerous. He knows me too well.”

Poe sat up. “I agree. He wants to lure you to the Dark Side. I’m no Jedi but that sounds like trouble waiting to happen.”

“Rey resisted him before,” Leia offered.

_Hardly_ , Ren thought at her. Startled, Rey knocked her hand against her mug loud enough to draw the attention of the group.

“Sorry, just a little jittery from the caffeine,” Rey mumbled, manually closing their connection.

Leia pursed her lips and said, “Give it a few days to think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always had a thing for wrist kisses. Also, are you guys reading Forms by Trebia? YOU MUST. GO GO GO. It is so good.


	8. Finally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the rating, just a heads up.

Rey wrapped the fresh bandage around Ren’s wound with what he thought was unnecessary force, but he didn’t complain about it. He just watched her hands move around his arm, fascinated by the nimble way her fingers twisted and rolled the material. She’d probably had to bandage her own wounds many times in the past. There were still so things he didn’t know about her.

“You have to talk to your mother. There can be no negotiations unless you’re willing to face your fears,” she was saying as she knotted the bandage.

He reached out to her through their connection, and she didn’t swat him away or close the connection. She felt tired and weak. Exhausted, even. He frowned.

“You’re not sleeping,” he accused.

“Neither are you,” she countered. That was true.

“You should go sleep in the _Falcon_ again,” he offered. She didn’t question how he knew where she was sleeping, and he was grateful.

She frowned thoughtfully. “You’re probably right. I have bizarre dreams when I sleep in the barracks.”

“I know,” he muttered, rubbing his neck. There was a long pause and her fingers lingered on the bare skin of his shoulder. She was trembling slightly.

Considering again, he said, “Or you could sleep here with me. I think that would be easier for both of us.”

“Do _you_ even fit on that cot?” Rey said, laughing a little.

Ren shrugged. “I could come to you.”

“The General, she doesn’t know about us,” Rey objected. The words seemed to be hard for her to say.

He raised an eyebrow. “Us?”

“Our…understanding,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

“Our Force Bond,” Ren corrected. “I wonder what she would say.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t come back? This isn’t right. It’s not going to end well.” Rey murmured. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder.

“I don’t think either of us can help it, at this point,” Ren said.

\--

Rey turned sharply away from him, furious at herself that he was right. “It feels like I’m betraying them,” Rey said, clenching her eyes shut like she could remove herself from the base by reducing it to a dark haze.

Behind her, Ren stood and walked up to her. Wrapping his good arm across her chest, he tugged her against him and she felt the hard wall of his chest press against her back. He lowered his head so that his hair tickled her skin as he pressed his mouth against her neck.

“Don’t overthink it,” he whispered. She melted into the sound of his voice, the feel of his warmth against her body. She pressed herself back until her ass made contact with his hips. He groaned.

She tried to turn and kiss him, but his hand across her collarbone was like an iron cage, and he held her in place. His voice was barely audible in her ear. “Unless you want me to fuck you on this cot right now, don’t turn around, Rey.”

“Oh,” she whimpered, holding very still.

She tried to turn around anyway, but he gave her shoulders a little shove and she stumbled forward instead. Turning, she glared at him, but she found that he had turned around to face the wall, his muscles tensing as he clenched his fists.

“Go, talk to my mother. Tell her what I told you before,” he said, his voice husky and tight.

Rey swallowed. “Look, the door is locked. We’re alone…”

He groaned and let his forehead fall against the wall, clanging heavily against the metal. “There’s a bug. They can hear what we say if they have a mind to.”

She paled, considering everything that had passed between them. “When were you going to tell me that?”

He turned sharply around, glaring at her. “Rey, I have been locked in a metal box for two days with nothing but your voice in my head and the sensation of you constantly showering for company. I’ve done nothing but want you for 48 hours, and unless you want the entire Resistance to know about us, it’s better if you leave.”

She left, her cheeks burning.

\--

“What did he want?” Leia said, half leaning on the conference table as Rey seated herself slowly, running her hands across her pants to smooth them. The jacket she wore was new and stiff, so unlike her threadbare Jakku tunic. She found herself missing it. The feeling of Ren’s lips lingered on her neck like a brand, and she adjusted the collar of her coat as if to hide the mark.

“He’ll go willingly to the trial on the condition that I accompany him there,” she said as evenly as she could.

Poe’s eyes widened to an almost comical degree. “What the hell is he trying to pull?”

“He probably just wants to give me more time to join the Dark Side,” Rey said.

“Doesn’t he see that’s pointless?” Poe demanded. He was admitted to the council sessions partly as a favor to Rey and partly for his first hand knowledge of Ren’s interrogation techniques, and Rey was grateful for him. He said what everyone else was thinking.

Leia sighed. “Ultimately, I don’t care why he wants you there. If he agrees to go peacefully, it wouldn’t kill us to have Rey along anyway.”

Poe leaned back. “Finn would hate this. Ren is going to try and bring her to Snoke.”

“He can hardly abduct me on the heart of Coruscant, not with the entire New Republic senate watching. It would be an act of war,” Rey said.

The New Republic moved its capital from planet to planet on a rotating basis, and it had been centered on Hosnian Prime when the First Order destroyed that system. After the chaos of that massacre, the surviving New Republic moved its center of operations back to Coruscant, which had once been the home of the former Galactic Republic. 

“And blowing up the Hosnian system wasn’t an act of war?” Poe declared, throwing himself back into his chair in frustration. “What you’re suggesting is akin to suicide, Rey. He can only have one objective.”

“Enough,” Leia interceded.

A quiet rumble sounded from the corner of the room as Chewie, who had been nearly silent for the past two days, finally spoke. “ _We won’t let anything happen to Rey. Ben needs to stand trial for his crimes_.”

Rey stared at him. She hadn’t even realized that he had been there.

Leia nodded. “Chewie is right. Then, once it’s over, Rey can find Luke. Ben is a Resistance prisoner, and we will go as a unit to see that justice is done.”

“General, I request permission to join the envoy,” Poe asked, his voice a low and passionate.

Leia sighed.

\--

Rey packed her bed kit in preparation for moving back to the _Falcon_ while Poe stared down at her in blatant disapproval.

“You’re in danger here. Why does no one want to admit that? What possible angle could you be working?”

“The General and I are both just trying to get what we want, Poe. I’m sure Kylo Ren is too.”

“But it seems like what he wants is you,” Poe snapped. “And you’re not terrified? Rey, I was in that interrogation chair once, too. I know what he can do.”

“He didn’t do that to me,” she growled, unsure why exactly she was lying to him.

“Then what did he do?”

“He made me an offer.”

“To turn to the Dark Side,” He finished for her, throwing his hands in the air.

“And I said no,” Rey snapped, sitting back on her heels as she shoved her small collection of personal belongings in her bag.

Poe gave her a long look. “We’re friends, Rey, but I know you’re hiding something from me. I wish Finn were awake, he would know what to say.”

Poe slumped back on his bed opposite hers and closed his eyes against the headboard.

“So you’re going with us to the trial?” Rey asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Poe opened his eyes and cracked a smile. “The General agreed after only a modicum of pestering. I’ll be the pilot flying the transport vehicle. I'll need a co-pilot, if you’re not too busy getting murdered by Kylo Ren.”

Rey threw her pillow at his head.

\--

Ren woke up gasping, Rey’s nightmare coursing through his head. She was dreaming of dead bodies close to her face and in excruciating detail. Her dreaming body surveyed the corpses of Finn, Poe, Leia, Han, and Chewie. They stared at her blankly, their dead faces pressed into the snow of a barren forest landscape.

She was in agony, sobbing into the snow as she clutched at them, trying to shake them back into wakefulness. She called out, her voice mumbled and hazy but distinct as she groaned and tossed in her sleep, agony in her chest and his name on her lips. Ren gasped at her strain and her longing, throwing the blanket from his body as he was filled with a desperate need to go to her, to make this hell end for both of them.

 _Ben, Ben, Ben_ , she called, plaintive and desperate. It was barely above a whisper. The grief brought a choking block to his throat and he fought hard not to cough.

Her adrenaline dulled the pain he felt when he scrambled to his feet, Forcing the door to his cell quietly open as he padded through the med bay and past the barracks, down the corridor that lead past the control center and the meeting rooms, out into the cavernous hangars that housed the Resistance fleet.

Poe Dameron was sleeping in his ship, his helmet drawn over his eyes and his feet propped up on the control panel of his x-wing. He had been keeping an eye on the _Falcon_ , but Ren knew he was soundly asleep by now. His misguided interest in protecting Rey vexed him, but there was no time. Later.

He Forced the door to the _Falcon_ open.

\--

“Rey,” he said, his voice low and soft as Rey scrambled back into consciousness again.

Her blankets were suffocating her, and her face was wet and hot as she heaved the covers off her body, prepared to fight or kill. She had woken up with a man next to her bed only once before, and she had nearly killed him before she dragged him back to Niima Outpost’s main gate and left him there for his trading party to collect the next morning.

This felt worse than that. The adrenaline that filled her was overwhelming, and she was momentarily unaware of who or what she was. Launching herself to her feet, Rey grabbed the staff leaning against her bunk and prepared to strike him.

His hand jutted out and caught the weapon before it made contact with his good shoulder, his grip dwarfing it as he stared down at her.

“Rey,” he murmured quietly. She blinked. Kylo Ren was standing before her, his chest heaving in time with hers as if he could feel her adrenaline. Maybe he could. She noted with a little jolt that the bandage was gone from his face. It was an ugly wound. Red and agitated, it was obviously far from healed.

“Oh,” she said, disengaging her fighting stance to stand a small measure apart from him. She turned, dropping the staff to the floor to wrap her arms around herself and heave a few stuttering breaths as the fear drained from her body like a slow, painful tide. He had seen it.

“Rey, don’t shut me out,” Ren demanded, his voice rising. “What the hell was that dream? You think you’re betraying them by being with me? Is that what’s going on?”

“How are you even here right now?” Rey muttered, pressing her hands against her eyes.

“You called out to me,” he reminded her. “For once.”

“Ren, how can I still feel this way about you? It’s not fair, it’s not right. You killed Han, and I’m supposed to be a Jedi but you’re making it so hard,” she groaned.

“I know. I know,” he breathed.

This was the exact wrong time for this to be happening. The stress of her dream was still alive in her head and she could see their faces, dead, all because of her. She had betrayed them and they were dead, and oh gods-

He took her in his arms, wrapping her up even with his bandaged one as she cried into her hands.

“I’m so sick of crying,” Rey stuttered. “I never used to cry.”

“You were chronically dehydrated,” Ren muttered. He didn’t kiss her, just held her like that as if to tie her to the present. She wanted to laugh at his comment, to point out that where her life had once been dry and suffocatingly barren, now she seemed to be constantly drowning. She had never learned to swim.

“I could teach you,” he offered bleakly. She looked up at his serious, concerned face. He wasn’t mocking her, just waiting for her to make a move.

“Will you stay here tonight?” Rey asked, turning slightly so that she was half facing him. He ran a finger across her saber burn with something like wonder on his face.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said. He scooped her up like he’d done on Takodana, holding her against him for a second before walking over to the bed and depositing her gently where she’d been sleeping a second before.

Rey nearly rolled her eyes. “I can walk.”

He nudged her, scooting her over to one side of the bunk she’d chosen, which had been built large enough that Chewbacca could sleep on it. There was room enough for two humans on it, especially when he pressed his chest flush against her back and they seemed to merge into one warm, injured body.

“I know,” he grunted.

\--

At some point during the night, Rey rolled over onto her other side so that she was facing him. Because of her burn, she told him.

At some point, he began to run his fingers across her hurt shoulder, his fingers tracing the edges of the unhealed welt. He soothed it, stroked around it up and down his arm. Because of her burn, he told her.

She placed her hand on his chest as he toyed his fingers across her shoulder blades. He tugged her hair out of her braids and watched it tumble down around his fingers. It was softer than it had been before. He brushed it off her neck so that it splayed out on their pillow, and her breath was coming in little shallow pants as he moved his hand down her shoulder to the small of her waist to tug her closer to him.

He stared at her eyes and she was peering up at him, frozen. He could feel that she wanted him but she wouldn’t move.

“Rey, _please_ ,” Ren said, his voice pleading. He couldn't be the one to start this, not after Han. It had to be her.

As always, Rey obliged him when he didn’t deserve it. She lifted her face just slightly up, her face hot, and touched her lips against his. Ren needed no further encouragement, gathering her up against him so that they were chest to chest, her breasts pushing against him as their mouths moved in tandem

\--

Against her, Rey felt him hesitate, and she wondered for the first time if he wasn’t a little scared of the two of them. She was. She looked at the pale whiteness of his chest, chiseled and angular, and she felt a trail of heat follow her finger as she dragged it across his chest. Ren sucked a breath in through his teeth as her finger moved lower to the vee of his abdomen, and he reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her lazy perusal of his torso.

She met his gaze and raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to stop?” She asked him.

He shook his head, his expression torn. “If we do this, it’s never going to go away, Rey. Us, I mean. That’ll be it. Are you prepared for that?”

She climbed on top of him and kissed him hard, dropping her hips backwards as she leaned forward so that she was straddling his cock. It was hard, and she could feel it between her legs, heavy and expectant.

“Rey,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to his as Rey began to move her hips slowly against his erection, feeling her own arousal pooling onto his pants. Ren felt it too, and he groaned against her.

She leaned forward so that her forehead nearly touched his, and he tugged at the hem of her shirt, yanking it up and over her shoulders. He seemed to have forgotten his injuries in his haste to get her clothes off.

\--

Clothed, Rey was formidable. Naked, she was breathtaking. Strong and lean, her lines seemed to stretch from one side of her to the other in a sleek contour of muscle. He wanted to run his hands along every part of her just for the sheer sensation of it.

She was everything he loved about a new speeder or a good blaster. She was power embodied. His dick was straining nearly through his pants and he was pretty sure he would come embarrassingly early if he didn’t get her off of him.

Putting his hands on her hips, Ren dragged her forward so that he was underneath her. When his mouth connected with her clit, Ren had the immense satisfaction of hearing her gasp. He had always liked surprising her.

\--

Rey hadn’t been aware that anyone else could make her feel as good as what she could already do for herself, but Ren seemed to be in the business of exceeding her expectations tonight, and his mouth against her was making her feel like she was rising up, somehow holding onto a balloon that buoyed her up and up.

She gripped the narrow ledge of the bed’s headboard, her hands splayed and tensed as she jerked and shuddered above him. His tongue worked gentle circles around her labia and clit, his hand finding her entrance and entering her slowly, so, maddeningly slowly.

Control freak as ever, he took his time, working her over with his mouth and fingers until she felt the precipice looming in front of her. “Wait,” she gasped, “I want you.”

He hesitated a moment, and then, withdrawing from underneath her, pushed her firmly down onto the mattress. The look he gave her was long and speculating, but he panted hard, trying to make up his mind.

 _Ren,_ she snapped at him in her head, _Fuck me right now or I’ll never speak to you again._

He broke out into a wolfish smile, and she helped yank his pants off and onto the floor. She sat back up and her hand went to his cock and she ran her hands around it greedily as he stared at her with a mixture of awe and desire.

She could _feel_ his pleasure, his immense satisfaction, through their connection as she took him first in her hands, then in her mouth. Abruptly, he lifted her up and laid her on her back, her head against the pillow.

He reached his hand down to her entrance and closed his eyes as he felt the wetness there, drawing in one last shuddering breath before he positioned himself. Rey nodded, and as he sank home, he locked his gaze on her, biting his lip as they both shared the same thought.

_Finally._

\--

Ren hadn’t been prepared for how it felt to be inside of her. He hadn’t been prepared for the sense that she was dragging him into her with her mind and their bond, that her body merging with his was only an extension of something much bigger, two seismic forces that were meeting with explosive, earth shattering results. She felt like the Force, like honing in on the most lethal and precise part of himself and using it.

Neither of them could bear it for long as he thrust into her and she dragged her hands down his back, moaning. Her hands gripped his shoulders and their connection roared in his ears, singing. He could feel that she was close, and when she breathed his name into his ear, they came together.

He could only murmur her name into her skin, again and again as she cried against him, hot tears running down her neck as she kissed his shoulders and neck. He didn’t realize that he was sobbing until he felt the salt of his tears burn against the scar she had given him.

\--

Much later, she asked him through the darkness, “Why am I coming to the trial?”

He sighed, and she felt his breath on her neck as he wrapped around her, spent and exhausted. “The First Order will ransom me back. I’ll send you with another Knight of Ren and we can regroup in one of the Outer Worlds.”

“And kill Snoke?” Rey whispered, running her hands through his hair.

Ren nodded against her neck. “Unless you have a better idea, scavenger.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I thought they were never going to bang I swear to god this took foreverrrr to get to.


	9. Traitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long delay! School started up again so I am busy busy. Have this long ass chapter (11 Word pages!!!!!!!! A personal best) as an apology.

He waited until she fell asleep against him to try and leave her bed. There was nothing to do about it. As much as he would have liked to stay, it wasn’t as if his cell could be found empty in the morning. Although, he thought he might enjoy strolling shirtless out of the _Falcon_ in the morning just to see what the Resistance reaction would be.

Probably murder, he mused. Rey was breathing softly through her parted lips, curled up small against his side with one hand wrapped around her head. She slept like she was shielding her head from an incoming blow. He sat up, wincing silently as the stiches in his side protested. It seemed they hadn’t enjoyed the night’s jostling around as much as he had.

Ren was so tired. He wanted to stay and curl up against her, clutch her to him and never move again. It felt wrong to leave when all he could think about was how good it would feel to stay. Better yet, he could start the ship and take off, fly away with her sleeping peacefully in this bunk. He could wake her up on a distant planet and they could start over and make love under foreign stars and a brighter sun.

But that was futile. Ren didn’t want to go back to the First Order. Not after Han, not after her. Not after this night. He would stand trial, make excuses for himself, be reclaimed and punished by his master and they would figure something out from there.

That was what they did, him and her. Now, they would do it together. There was a chance that Snoke would kill him, and Ren sighed at that thought. Would she die if he did? Would he want to live if she was not alive?

He could taste her dreams, which were steady and peaceful. Seagulls and a silver ship twining around each other in a star dance.

\--

Rey woke up slowly, feeling sore and at ease. She hadn’t expected him to be there when she woke up, and of course, he wasn’t. She shoved her limbs into her clothes and her feet into her boots and jogged out onto the tarmac.

It was just dawn, and Poe was asleep in his x-wing, strangely. She could hear his snoring echoing around the hangar as she trotted past his ship on her way inside the base, and she could see the tips of his boots pressing against the cockpit. Curious, she climbed up the ladder to the open cockpit and rested her arms on the edge.

She poked him and his eyes flew open with an almost comical burst of anxiety. He sat sharply up, his boots on the dashboard kicking into the plexiglass of the cockpit door. He cursed.

“You scared the hell out of me, Rey,” he spluttered, taking her in.

She grinned at him, and he gave her a confused look. “You’re okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “I slept really well. What are you doing out here, anyway?”

He looked sheepish. “I thought you were going to either run away or be murdered. Thought I’d get ready for either possibility. Why did you tie my boot laces together?” He asked as he put his feet back on the cockpit floor.

Rey peered down at his boots in total confusion. They were laced together in a perfect square knot. “I didn’t do that,” she insisted.

Untying them, he gave her a dry smile. “I’m constantly learning new stuff about you, Rey.”

She sent a wordless question out to Ren, who answered immediately.

 _A petty joke. Forgive me_ , he said.

She did.

\--

Rey was pouring herself a cup of caf before resuming repairs on her ship when General Organa found her. They were alone in the little canteen that adjoined the mess hall, and Rey was taken aback by how close the General suddenly was to her. It occurred to her uneasily that Leia was supposed to be just as gifted with the Force as her brother.

General Organa leaned casually against the counter and gave Rey, whose hands were still half frozen mid-stir, a long, even look. “I was your age once, too, you know.”

Rey didn’t say anything until it became apparent that the General had no plans to break the long silence. Haltingly, Rey said, “I am aware of that, General.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ve also been in love before.”

Rey’s frown deepened and she set down her cup. “General, I don’t-”

“Rey, I’m not your mother, but I do feel a certain responsibility towards you, given everything you’ve done for me. Tell me truthfully that Ben isn’t hurting you.”

Rey suddenly found herself blushing. “It’s not like that, General, I swear.”

Leia gave her a long, even look, and when Rey tried to shift her gaze away, the General gripped her hand tightly. “Rey, I love my son. Even with everything, I still believe that he is capable of good. I’ve seen his improvement since being here, and as angry as I am with him, I believe he has a future here with us.”

Rey nodded slowly and the General continued, “Just tell me that he’s good to you, and that you haven’t forgotten his sins. Ben was directly responsible for the death of a generation of young Jedi. If you had been at that school with Luke, you would have been slain too. Do not forget that, even if he has made progress.”

Rey could not speak. Her throat was closed as if she were being choked. The General continued to speak. “I care about you, and I want you to be on your guard, no matter what you may feel for him.”

Rey found her voice again. “General, the nature of our bond is such that I doubt he could kill me even if he wanted to. And he doesn’t want to. I can feel almost everything he does, and if one of us died, I’m sure the other would be…” Rey trailed off, unable to come up with a word that did that sense of imagined loss any justice.

The General considered. “I haven’t forgotten that you are the reason I have my son back. No one else could have kept him here willingly. Don’t think I don’t know that he leaves his cell almost every night to visit you, Rey.”

“Oh,” Rey said, blushing hotly. “But it wasn’t- I mean, he didn’t come to the _Falcon_ except once.”

“He came to see you every night, whether you were aware of it or not. I could feel him do it, and the cell’s logs report a manual opening of the doors every night around the same time. I’m not a fool, Rey. Tell me you’re being safe.”

She blushed deeper. “It’s fine, I’ve got-” and she cut off, opting to simply point to the back of her knee where the little fertility blocker chip she’d had installed once she’d arrived at D’Qar was sitting.

A thought occurred to her as General Organa’s words registered. “You said that no one else could have kept him here. You needed me on base to keep Ben from running, didn’t you? It’s why you didn’t want me to go to Luke,” She murmured. It was barely a question. Rey already knew the answer.

The General sighed. “Forgive me, but yes. There was no way we could hold him here without you. He’s too strong and I didn’t want to fight to keep him here and lose valuable men and women trying to stop him from destroying himself.”

“You knew the whole time?” Rey accused.

The General cracked the tiniest of smiles. “I’m no Jedi, Rey, but I am strong in the Force. I can the bond between you two. It’s distracting when you’re physically close to each other.”

Rey’s mouth parted slightly in astonishment. General Leia put a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “I’m on your side, Rey. Please don’t do anything foolish.”

Then she left. Rey groaned, wanting to collapse into the floor with embarrassment. The legendary General Organa had just asked her about birth control, admitted to knowing that she and Ren were sleeping together, and had felt the need to remind her not to do anything stupid. Rey wanted to jump in the _Falcon_ and flee the planet, the system, the entire galaxy to avoid her embarrassment.

 _You think you’re uncomfortable?_ Ren intoned in her head, his voice burning.

“Quit eavesdropping,” Rey muttered at him, more embarrassed than ever.

Off to one side, a slightly ashamed looking Poe stood up from where he’d been seated eating breakfast at one of the mess hall tables just out of sight, and walked gingerly out of the room.

“Sorry,” he called over his shoulder.

 _Great, now half the Resistance base knows_ , Ren groaned.

\--

Later, when they loaded Ren onto the Falcon for transport to Coruscant, Poe gave her a friendly wave over to the cockpit where he was sitting. He was about the only thing keeping Rey from going slightly mad with nerves, and his apologetic smile did something to help ease her stress.

It had been a small agony to see Ren being locked up while she just stood there near the door of his cell, gripping her staff with an iron hold and white knuckles. He’d held her gaze and seemed cool and impassive, but she could feel his anger at the restraints, the indignity of it. He’d wished she hadn’t been there for that part, but there was nothing for it, she was assigned to guard him.

Chewie was walking a handcuffed Ren up the walkway as she sat down uneasily in the pilot’s seat, and Rey and Ren both resolutely ignored each other. He was pulling away from her, and his thoughts came to her patchily if at all. She could hear the click of his boots on the durasteel floor.

“Sorry about overhearing you earlier,” Poe said as Rey adjusted the seat so that she was seated snugly against the console.

Rey shook her head and gave him a weak smile. “No, don’t worry about it. I know you didn’t mean to hear it. Anyway, I wasn’t scolding _you_.”

Poe frowned slightly. “Just how connected are you to that guy?”

Rey just shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

“You’re literally sleeping with the enemy, you know,” he said tightly, flipping on the compressor as Rey checked the pre-flight readouts. She’d already done the standard pre-flight checks with a particularly somber Chewbacca earlier that day, but it was soothing to do it again.

“It’s not something I wanted, you know. It just sort of, you know, happened,” she grumbled, feeling Ren pacing around the locked cargo hold they had just locked him in. A handful of other Resistance pilots were accompanying them on their flight to Coruscant, and around the Falcon she heard them powering on their comm units and their engines.

“I just want you to know that this whole thing is a horrible idea,” Poe said lightly, dragging her back to the present.

She gave him a sidelong glare and he added, “What? It’s not like you don’t already know it yourself.”

Since she couldn’t deny it, she grunted the way Han used to do when he was wrong and grumpy about it. “Just fly casual, Poe,” she growled. He almost laughed.

\--

Once they met up with the rest of the pilots in the outer rim of D’Qar, the whole group accelerated smoothly to light speed. As the starlines streamed past them in a surreal blur that sent a thrill through Rey’s chest, Poe turned casually to her.

“It’s your first time on a Core World, isn’t it?” He asked.

Rey nodded. “First time that I know of. I don't expect I’ll like it, though.”

“Why not? Coruscant has a little of everything.”

Rey thought of Coruscant, which was a huge and important planet that was composed of one massive, planet-wide city. The entire planet was developed and settled in transparisteel and iron, speeders and industry. She tried to imagine something that big, comparing it to the fallen Star Destroyers she’d scrounged a living from. She imagined one on top of the other, up and up to the point where you couldn’t even see the bottom one anymore.

Her mind rejected the image, and she said, “It has everything, sure, except space and silence. And I bet there’s no green anywhere. It’s too much metal, too many people.”

Poe shook his head. “I can see your point, but I think you could appreciate it. Just think of the whole planet as one big machine. Each neighborhood and region is a finely tuned portion of the giant engine that is Coruscant.” He spread his hands out in front of him in an expansive gesture.

Rey considered that and found that she liked the idea of a city-wide machine much better than a hulk of decaying metal under her feet. And, she thought, a city-machine would be likely to have plenty of dark corners and dirty bars where degenerate traders and thieves would go. She might feel almost at home in places like that.

“I should take you to the Uscru District,” Poe said excitedly. “We can go to the Outlander Club. It’s famous.”

That meant nothing to Rey, who was thinking of Ren. He had stopped pacing, listening to her conversation. He was a black cloud of ominous silence on the periphery of her mind, and she tried not to feel annoyed by his mood. She was unsuccessful.

“I’m sure I’d love to go,” Rey said finally. Ren resumed his pacing.

\--

When they landed the craft, it touched down on a landing dock unlike anything Rey had ever seen before. It was just a platform extending off an immensely tall building with a narrow walkway connecting the landing platform to the building, seeming incredibly small and weak to Rey. She was grateful for Poe, who showed her the finer points of lading the Falcon from a full-stop hover just above the platform.

They set the ship down just as a reception party began its approach from across the landing platform. Chewie moved silently to remove Ren from the holding cell, whose hands were still tied tightly behind his back at the wrists and forearms. Rey couldn’t see him from the cockpit, but she could feel him leaving the ship. Rey swallowed hard and tried not to think about it.

Poe stood up and stretched once the hyperdrive had powered down enough to be left alone to cool and tugged her out of her seat by the hand. “We have to go greet the welcome party,” he said, a big grin on his face.

When she gaped at him, he added smoothly, “We’re galactic heroes. Or had you forgotten about the whole Starkiller thing?”

\--

Hours of meetings. Greeting countless grieving senators. Tense words hurled politely at the General and their whole party for carrying the traitorous prodigal son on their ship. Rey spoke little, but shook the hands of many who were eager to reassure her that justice would be served for the destruction of the Hosnian system. Justice, they promised her.

Rey felt her head swim slightly as the smell of yet another perfume filled her lips. They were standing on the edge of the old Galactic Senate meeting room. Inside, pods full of New Republic senators and representatives argued angrily about What Was To Be Done About Everything, and Rey wished desperately that she could just be alone.

She couldn’t feel him anymore, of course. Either he’d succeeded at shutting her out completely, or, more likely, he was simply too far away and surrounded by other people for her cluttered mind to find him. Later, when she had some space, she could meditate and find him more accurately, but every time she had a second to herself there was someone else who wanted to shake her hand and thank her for what she had done.

Rey had to fight back the blush of shame that filled her throat when she looked at them.

\--

“Naturally, there are options,” General Organa was saying to Admiral Ackbar in a low voice. “But we can’t expect them to-”

“The entire New Republic Star Fleet destroyed!” said an angry looking woman who had been introduced to Rey as Fiolla of Lorrd. She was apparently some kind of ship expert.

Their small group was huddled around a meeting room table, speaking in hushed voices as they stole a conference with each other before their last evening meeting. Rey hovered by the door on the pretense of watching for spies, but mostly it was to avoid being asked her opinion. More and more, Rey realized how much of a conflict of interest she had in these talks, mostly because she couldn’t seem to stop searching for his presence.

Fiolla continued, “We must ransom him for ships, Leia. There’s no sense hoping for a prison sentence, he _will_ be tried for Hosnian Prime alone. Look at this place, it’s chaos.”

The General responded firmly, “It will take time for the newly elected representatives to gain their bearing in the new Senate, but it _will_ happen.”

“We’re in turmoil, here, Leia. We can’t just stand by without a fleet to defend ourselves.”

“The Senate will accuse you of only representing the corporate sector’s financial ends,” the General said warningly.

Fiolla threw up her hands in exasperation. “If the New Republic hasn’t noticed, we sure could use some financial gains at the moment. I hardly think it’s a bad thing to employ some CSA efficiency.”

Ackbar interjected, “If you recall, General Organa and I both strongly resisted the New Republic’s disarmament initiative that left us crippled in the first place, Fiolla.”

She scoffed, “Fat lot it would have done us regardless, seeing as how the whole fleet went with the Hosnian system anyway. No, the best thing will be to try and ransom Ben. At least he’ll _live_ , Leia.”

Rey decided that she liked Fiolla of Lorrd.

\--

Later, Rey was finally left to herself. She had a little room with a huge window that overlooked the city. Of course, there was nothing else to overlook, so she probably shouldn’t have felt such a thrill at it. But she did, surprisingly. Her world had become so much larger since leaving Jakku, and this was a part of that. All the people she’d met today were a part of that.

But she had to find him. Her head was aching and she just wanted to crawl into his arms and remind herself that she wasn’t absolutely insane for coming here. She knew that it might be the last time she could see him for a long time, and her heart hurt in anticipation. She was tired and overwhelmed, guilty and sad. Above all, she needed him and his warm body and his strong arms and his deep chuckle rumbling through her chest.

Sitting down, Rey closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down enough to locate him through the Force. It would have been easier if she’d had any training beyond what she’d accidentally stumbled upon or been forced to learn, but she fell into a state of semi-mediation after a moment without too much trouble.

Reaching out, she put her mind onto the bond stretching between her and him, feeling it give slightly as she pulled on it. On the other end, she felt an answering tug. It was like an electrical current in her sternum, and with a little sigh, she disengaged from her search. She knew where he was now, whether he wanted to see her or not.

\--

She Forced the door open, feeling an ominous sense in the pit of her stomach at the nothing she could feel from his end of the Force. He was facing away from her, the lights in the little metal holding cell they’d placed him in dimmed almost to blackness except for the faint glow of a strip light near the ceiling.

Ren was thrown into dramatic shadow, which was so like him, she thought. Always dramatic. Always dark.

She coughed, even though he knew damn well she was in the room. They could barely conceal their thoughts from each other anymore, let alone their physical location. It was solidly hopeless, and yet she could feel him shielding his thoughts from her.

“Hey,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

He turned face her, his face a mix of desperation and fear that she hadn’t been prepared for. He looked like a man at the end of his rope, and she wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him, but she still couldn’t feel what he was thinking so she held back, unsure.

“You should go,” he said. She knew that he didn’t want her to even without the bond transmitting his thoughts. His face betrayed his every thought, and one hand twitched slightly at his side as if he wanted to reach for her.

“Is that why you’re blocking your thoughts? You’re trying to save me?” she snapped. His face twisted into something like regret.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, Rey,” he murmured.

“Don’t be stubborn,” she sighed. “We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”

He exhaled sharply and sat down on the little cot that was built into the wall of his cell. It was long and narrow. Grudgingly, he looked from her to the spot next to him on the makeshift bed and she took the hint and moved to sit by him. They hovered a fraction of an inch apart in silence for an agonizing second before he reached out to draw her gruffly to his side, his arm wrapping firmly around her shoulders. She laced her feet over his and her face collided with his chest as he wrapped around her, still staring straight ahead.

She inhaled deeply as the channel between them opened again as Ren gave up the game of trying to keep her out. She felt his fear and sighed in relief. “I was worried that you’d…” she murmured, her voice a muffled drawl against his clothes.

He gave a dry little laugh. “What? Decided to break it off?”

Rey shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. You’re a complicated guy, Ben.”

He stiffened but didn’t respond immediately. His grip on her shoulder tightened infinitesimally. “My superiors would expire if they’d heard what you just said.”

She tilted her face up to meet his eyes, which were dark and hard to read in the dimness. “Do you mind?”

It was his turn to shrug. “Not as much as I would have thought. I expect it’s because it sounds so sweet, coming from you. I’m not sure how to feel about sweet.” A long pause. “Rey, you know that I would never willingly leave you, don’t you?”

“I know,” she said, and it was true. She couldn’t imagine leaving him forever now, not after this. “I love you,” she added as an afterthought, as if to clarify.

He gave her a quizzical look. “I didn’t think you were ever going to say it. I thought it would be me who was finally going to break.”

She nudged him in the side in mock outrage and he cracked a grin at her that was so wide and boyish that it made her feel pleasantly weak. A month ago, that would have struck her as a total paradox of emotion. And yet…

She lifted her face up and closed her eyes, asking for a kiss. He obliged her, pressing his warm mouth against hers. She wound her fingers into his shirt and lifted herself up to deepen the kiss, which was feeling like falling down a sharp drop and finding a breathtaking nothingness there to catch her. She was simply crashing helplessly.

When he gripped her lower back and lifted her so that she was sprawled across him, straddling his lap, it was even better.

He pulled away from the kiss to peer up at her, his arms tight around her lower back as hers spilled behind his back and curled around him. They were as physically wrapped up as they could be without him physically inside her, and that thought reverberated around both of their heads and sent a mutual shudder of pleasure through them.

His hand grabbed one of her braids and tugged her head backwards, exposing her neck. He kissed it without one ounce of tenderness, but with a need that she could feel against her center. His desire flooded her, mixing with her own, and Rey was floored by how instantaneous the transfer of emotions was between them. It was hard to say where her desire ended and his began; it simply was, a bridge of connection between them that felt like an expansion of herself.

It was exhilarating.

“Rey,” he said against her throat, “Tomorrow, when they take me, they will torture me.”

She stilled, her eyes flashing open to stare at the ceiling. “How can they torture _you_?”

“Snoke is powerful. But I want you to be prepared for it. For the pain,” he said. He didn’t sound afraid. She tilted her head back down to look at him and he met her gaze with his serious, transparent expression. It was the same one she was so familiar with on him. He was so serious, her boy.

“What do you think they’ll find?” she asked.

“You, mostly. You, everywhere in my head. They may give me up as a lost cause.”

Rey thought of the Light she’d seen in him and felt hope flare in her chest. “They’ll try and turn you back.”

He shook his head. “Rey, I’m not turned. You know I’m not turned.”

She frowned. “I know. But you’ve come so far. I still want you to be my teacher. I want to sleep in your bed and do all the things we thought about doing together. You owe me that.” She kissed him again, slow and long and deep, and said, against his mouth in a breath of a whisper, “So don’t let them kill you.”

“I won’t,” he vowed. Then, grinning, he said, “So, you’re finally going to let me teach you? I’ll win you over yet.”

It was so unexpected that she couldn’t help her giddy laugh. “Dream on.”

He smiled, too. “Where should we go when we’re together again?”

“We could go back to Jakku,” Rey suggested.

He frowned. “A little obvious, don’t you think?”

“That’s the point.”

“No, I don’t want you to ever go back there again.”

She shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”

He pursed his lips slightly, a stubborn expression crossing his brow, and she sighed and ceded the point.

“Rey,” he said cautiously, “Would you consider coming to me?”

She blinked and climbed off him, not in anger or coldness, she just wanted to consider what he was saying in a position that made her more capable of logical thought. He quirked his mouth to one side as she thought that, not a little pleased with himself.

“You mean come to the _Finalizer_?” Rey queried.

“Or whatever Star Destroyer they send me to.”

“How would that even work?”

“I could say, truthfully, that I’d won you over and you’d agreed to train under me,” he explained, and Rey had the impression that he’d been thinking about this for a while. The answers felt rehearsed.

She drew back slightly. “Won me over? They would expect me to turn to the Dark Side.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” he added cautiously. “It would just be considerably easier to destroy Snoke from within the ship, rather than outside it.”

“Wouldn’t he see through us?”

“As I understand it, Sith apprentices are almost supposed to destroy their masters. He might think it nothing but a useful teaching endeavor or an excuse to finally kill me.”

“Or he might destroy us both the minute he realizes the plan. Which would be immediately,” she added.

“I rather doubt that. Rey, we’re a Force bonded Jedi pair. We’re some of the best fighters in the galaxy. He’ll want us to produce children, I expect.”

Rey nearly choked on her surprise, the General’s words from earlier floating through her brain. “I’m not ready for that.”

He shook his head. “Nor am I. But Snoke would certainly believe that we were trying…” He gave her a suggestive grin, but Rey didn’t smile back.

“I can’t come aboard the _Finalizer_ and just play with the Dark Side, you know that. We’d be caught instantly, and anyway, I don’t want anything to do with the Dark Side.”

He sighed. “I was fairly certain it wasn’t going to be your idea of a party.”

“You just want to have your rations and eat them, too,” Rey huffed.

Ren raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?” He didn’t know the expression.

Rey frowned because, upon further consideration, the idiom really didn’t make any sense when taken literally. “It’s a Jakku phrase, maybe. I mean that you want to have your First Order power and me at the same time, but you can’t. I’d show up thinking we were equals and the next thing I’d know you’d have another mask made for yourself and me in an all black flight suit and some ridiculous cloak.”

“Cloaks are very practical, and you would look beautiful in black,” he countered.

“You know what I mean. You’d try and make me lose myself to you because you’re greedy.”

He looked down, a little ashamed. “I don’t want to lose you. Not even for a minute. If you come with me as part of the ransom deal, then they’ll-”

She kissed him, stopping his mouth with her own as she climbed back onto his lap. Giving his shoulders a gentle shove, she pushed him back onto the bed and straddled his chest as he looked up at her, somewhat in awe.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Kylo Ren,” she said hotly. “I am not going to be your pet Jedi while you go around playing Sith lord, understand? Additionally, you are never going to lose me, so get that through your thick head.”

She pressed a hot kiss against his mouth and his hands reached up to wrap around her back as her hands slipped under his shirt to touch the skin of his chest. As she began to reach lower, he flipped them suddenly over so that he was above her again, his hands braced on the bed right next to her ears.

His breath was heaving and his voice was low and heated when he said, “My grandfather was so afraid of losing the woman he loved that he went mad with his fear. It turned him the Dark Side and made him the strong warrior that I always idolized, but he lost her forever. I understand his fears better now. I think understand him completely, after you.”

Somewhat dazed, Rey stared up at him, overwhelmed and full of desire and in love all at once. She reached up to stroke his cheek. “What happened to her?”

A long pause, and his mouth turned into a flat line. “He killed her.”

Rey swallowed. “Oh.”

“So you understand my concern, then, when we talk about leaving each other. I can’t do that to you.”

“Well, was _she_ one of the best fighters in the galaxy?” Rey demanded.

“No,” he admitted, considering her.

She gave her head a haughty toss. “Well, then we’re fine. I would never let you kill me, especially not with that ridiculous lightsaber of yours. Honestly, Ben, you-”

He was grinning that wide boyish smile again and then he was kissing her and Rey was falling, falling, falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know I have a [Tumblr](http://manic-pixie-clambake.tumblr.com/) where you can hang out if you want to??  
> I don't post a whole lot of Star Wars things, so heads up there. But I have an ask box if you have any thoughts or whatever. Or we can chit chat.


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